University Lecturer Against Removal Of Subsidies On Agricultural Inputs

Accra, (Greater Accra Region) 9 Oct., Professor Yaw Ahenkorah, a lecturer at the Department of Soil Sciences, University of Ghana, Legon, said today government's removal of subsidies on agricultural inputs is a bad agricultural policy. Delivering a paper at the inaugural lectures of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences (GAAS) in Accra, Prof Ahenkorah questioned why government accepted the IMF prescription of a 'no subsidy regime on agriculture' while developed countries still do so. ''We may note that the European Community subsidizes agriculture 38 per cent, USA 32 per cent and Japan 72 per cent,'' he said in his paper titled ''Efficient Utilization of the Vertic Soils of the Accra Plains: Prospects, Constraints and Way Forward''. The annual lectures organized by the GAAS was attended by agricultural professors, lecturers and students from secondary and tertiary institutions. Prof Ahenkorah said even though he is not advocating an unreasonable importation of fertilizers, he does not rpt not equally support ''unreasonable policy whose net effects make it practically impossible to use vital agricultural inputs like fertilizers''. He indicated that, contrary to general perception, ''soil degradation arising from the use of chemical fertilizers in the country poses no serious threat as some people would like us to believe''. According to Prof. Ahenkorah, the 408,000-hectare Accra Plains, notorious for its unpredictable rainfall pattern, is the most densely populated area in the country. However, he said its proximity to Accra and Tema makes it imperative to exploit its agricultural potential for the maximum use of the teeming population of the twin cities. He pointed out that the Accra Plains has 70 soil series which are highly plastic when wet but hard and compact when dry with deep cracks, giving the local farmer a short critical threshold period for farming. Some of the series have only 30 per cent depths of fertile soil which change abruptly to a hard impervious surface and have very low nutrient levels. Such soils, he said, are similar to those being successfully cultivated in South Africa, India, Sudan and parts of Tanzania, adding that they can be made highly productive through mechanized irrigation farming. Prof Ahenkorah warned, however, that ''the type, extent and degree of irrigation should be monitored and controlled to avoid extreme draining of the lower Volta river''. ''Dried-up or diminished outflows would threaten the survival of fish that spawn in the river and destroy the estuaries that serve as breeding grounds for the oceanic species,'' he added.