Our agriculture needs salvation. There are real man-made institutional challenges that have made farming a very difficult venture to invest in and unless they are addressed, no amount of calls will reverse the current trend. The fear is that the current situation is bound to worsen with the new found oil wealth, and Ghana is heading in a direction of no return now that we are importing tomatoes. After all onion imports started longtime ago and we watched on! There have been several attempts to promote agricultural development here. Regional agricultural development programs were in vogue in the 70s through the 80s and 90s, notably: Upper Regional Agricultural Development Program (URADEP), Volta Regional Agricultural Development Program (VORADEP) Brong Ahafo Regional Agricultural Development Program (BARDEP). These were followed up by the Sasakawa Project, the National Agricultural Extension Project (NAEP). They did their bits to develop agriculture and yet our productivity and expansion have remained almost the same. The main reason is that the fundamentals are simply not there, it is not because the projects were themselves badly designed but they were not anchored in the right institutional framework. The current institutional structures doesnt match with the agricultural development, and as they are man-made, they can be unmade by man. They were created not by the ordinary Ghanaian but by those entrusted with the management of the country from colonial times to present day.
Posted on: Tue, 19 Aug 2014 12:05:40 +0000
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