PFJ is government’s best policy - Palgrave Boakye-Danquah

Government Spokesperson on Governance and Security, Palgrave Boakye-Danquah has scored the government’s Planting for Food and Jobs policy a 100%.

According to him, government’s programme for the revival of Ghanaian agriculture, “Planting for Food and Jobs”, is achieving considerable success within a few years of its implementation.

Palgrave Boakye-Danquah opined that, the impact of the policy on Ghana’s agricultural sector has been astounding and he’s hopeful the policy will continue yielding phenomenal results in the coming years.

He said, since implementing the programme, its interventions have been designed to enhance yields of farmers through access to subsidised, improved seeds and fertilizers; reduce post-harvest losses; increase extension services to farmers; develop the livestock subsector; develop selected tree crops; introduce greenhouse technology to improve productivity and quality of vegetable production; improve mechanization services to farmers; and develop irrigation.

“The Planting for Food and Jobs programme has been a very successful programme, I will tout it as the best policy for the president’s government,"Mr Palgrave Boakye-Danquah exclusively told Kwaku Owusu Adjei(Patoo) on Adwenekasa on Accra-based Original FM 91.9.

“Food is bulky. It has so many components and let’s say high transportation cost. So if anything happens on the world market to oil prices, you have a hit on food prices. Same applies to chemical inputs. These are not just for food, but it is for everything. [The current challenges] are not just in Ghana. It is a global phenomenon. That doesn’t mean that our programme is not successful, ”he added.

Planting for Food and Jobs is a flagship agricultural campaign of the Government of Ghana and has five implementation modules.

The five PFJ modules are food crops, Planting for Export and Rural Development (PERD), greenhouse technology villages, Rearing for Food and Jobs (RFJ) and Agricultural Mechanisation Services (AMSECs).

The first PFJ module (food crops) aims to promote food security and the immediate availability of selected crops on the market and also to provide jobs.