Agric sector GDP input declines

The contribution of the agriculture sector to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has reduced to 22 percent from 40 percent.

The sector currently employs 50 percent of Ghana’s total labour force as against the previous 60 percent.

Seth Adjei Baah, President of the Ghana Chamber of Commerce & Industry (GCCI) disclosed this while speaking at the launch of a new fertilizer product in Accra recently.

“It is disheartening to note that the agric sector currently has the least share of GDP even though it employs the largest proportion of the total workforce.

He said, “Ghana’s dependency on agriculture for food security, employment and other needs such as foreign exchange will continue to grow and it is imperative that we reverse the declining trend.

For Ghana to achieve the Millennium Development Goal (MGD) 1 of halving extreme poverty and eradicating hunger by 2015 there is the need to reverse the trend. He called for an improvement in production technology.

In 2013, 1.5 percent of the Annual Budget Funding Amount (ABFA), representing GH¢4.6 million was allocated to the sector but in the 2014 budget, an amount of GH¢136 million, was allocated.

According to the Finance Minister, Seth Terkper, Government increased the agriculture sector’s budget allocation in order to help boost it.

He said as part of efforts to boost agriculture, facilitate trade and improve the environment for commercial activities, Government will undertake initiatives to transform agriculture.

Additionally, he noted that post-production challenges in agribusiness would be addressed.

“In this regard, Government will facilitate the pooling of private and public sector funds to pursue the following major initiatives in the agriculture sector, including developing modern farmer markets, development of agriculture estates and scaling up of the Agricultural Insurance Scheme,” he said.