Plantain not being imported; NPP running down efforts of farmers - Gov't

Europa

May 31, 2016 11:35 AM

Nana Addo had accused the Mahama-led administration of destroying the Agric sector to the extent that the food bill under the current government has shot up to $1.6 billion.

Plantain not being imported, Government of Ghana says

The Ministry of Food and Agriculture has denied claims by the flagbearer of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Akufo Addo, that government has added importation of plantain to its long list of food items imported into the country.

“When Kufuor was leaving in 2008, the import food bill for our country was $600 million, Mills and Mahama criticized Kufuor for his performance and promised to reduce it. Last year, the food import bill of our country was $1.5 billion. We are now importing plantain into Ghana. Agriculture, which in Kufuor’s last year was growing at 7.4% in 2008, this year was 0.04%,” Nana Addo said.

But, the Deputy Minister of Food and Agriculture, Dr. Ahmed Yakubu Alhassan has strongly indicated that plantain has not been documented as one of the food products imported into the country.

“Agricultural commodities that are imported into the country. I don’t see plantain as one of them. So I don’t know where this type of information is coming from,” he told Radio Ghana.

According to the deputy minister, Ghana is rather producing plantain at a surplus. He explained that plantain is a perennial crop so its harvest and supply are regulated by the weather.

“Ghanaian farmers produce 3.9 billion metric tonnes of plantain in 2015. And we need to 2.3 million metric tonnes to feed the population of 27 million people. And so we are in surplus in terms of production,” he added.

He believes the NPP is only trying to run down the efforts of Ghanaian farmers in Agriculture, adding that “It is always important to compare agriculture itself rather than compare Agriculture to other sectors of the economy that are not maybe getting more advanced investment in comparison with Agriculture.”

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