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Adopt private sector led measures to revitalise PFJ, 1DIF – Economists

The government has been advised to adopt private sec­tor led measures to revitalise the Plant­ing for Food and Jobs (PFJ) and One District-One Factory (1D1F) initiatives.

“Doing so would be a strategic step towards tackling inflation and reducing reliance on imported food commodities, while support­ing agro-processing businesses,” the Economists said.

Dr Benjamin Amoah, a Senior Lecturer with the Department of Finance at the University of Ghana Business School (UGBS), and Dr Daniel Anim-Prempeh, a Chief Economist with the Policy Initiative for Economic Develop­ment (PIED) made the recom­mendation.

They said this in exclusive interviews with the Ghana News Agency on their expectations of the John Dramani Mahama led government, highlighting the importance of the PFJ and 1D1F initiatives.

The two initiatives were intro­duced in 2017 under the erstwhile government to promote food secu­rity, economic growth, and support Ghana’s industrialisation drive, but have not yielded the expected results.

It targeted increased produc­tion of rice, tomato, pepper, onion, soyabean, sorghum, plantain, yam, cassava, and poultry, most of which are imported from Ghana’s neighbouring countries and over­seas, by eliminating bottlenecks in the agricultural value chain.

Dr Amoah called for enhanced collaboration between the States’s implementing agencies and the private sector to ensure the effec­tive implementation of initiatives to propel sustainable economic growth and development.

He noted that such partnership would bring about the provision of the needed resources and expertise for a turnaround of the PFJ, 1D1F, and other related initiatives by the new government, while creating jobs in the agricultural value chain.

According to the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS), 13 out of the 15 top ranked items that drove the country’s inflation for six years (from 2018 to 2024) were food item

That, Dr Amoah questioned the effectiveness of the implemen­tation government-led initiatives, like the PFJ and 1D1F, which were often “political.”

“You cannot go through about seven years of planting for food and jobs, especially on the food side, and then you have food inflation always increasing and food becoming expensive on the market,” he explained.

“So, we can have something similar to that [PFJ], but we should try to bring in the private sector so that we can easily measure output and performance,” the Economist advocated.

“There should be a huge investment and coordination of agric sector initiatives like PFJ and 1D1F because we need food secu­rity and then at competitive price,” said, Dr Anim-Prempeh.

Again, he raised concern about the country spending about US$2 million to import tomatoes, as well as other foodstuff from Burkina

 Faso and neighbouring countries, and called for support for farmers and food processing companies.

“Until we support the private sector, including the manufacturing companies in our food basket re­gions, produce energy at affordable prices and solve the cost of capital issue, there will be challenges, with our food systems,” he indicated.

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