A member of the Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana has predicted that the situation with high food prices and the scarcity of food in the country is going to worsen.
The programs officer believes that external problems and the internal problems the country faces as of now will put it in a Dore situation by the end of the year and into the next year.
In an interview on The Big Issue today, Mr. Bismark Nortey shared the bad news he had for Ghanaians:
‘The bad news I have for you is that this might even get worse for this year and early next year because of all that we are experiencing now”.
He said this on Backdrop of the things that affected farmers from last year, like the unavailability of fertilisers;
“Last year around May-June where normally we expect to get our fertilisers to apply. Getting a fertiliser was a big, big problem”.
Fertilisers, being one of the most crucial for farming, was very difficult to acquire as a result of the high cost and companies that were involved couldn’t help but involve the government.
The representative of the association claimed that they ‘had alerted government on covid ramifications and how countries were protecting what they have been producing’.
The government did not take this seriously, per the statement of Mr. Bismark Owusu,
“Because of the forecast that we had and we informed government that we are likely to experience shortage of input expecially fertiliser, so something should be done. That point was not taken by government and we were been counter-facted with a couple of facts that there will be fertiliser and we were just blowing hot air and we kept quiet. When the season started we all saw the experience”.
Mr. Bismark Owusu pointed out to some specific factors which are affecting food prices now which will continue into the future:
“So now there so many things we are affecting food prices. First of all, we were unable to produce more from last year. Secondly, because of the cost of living that has gone up. In terms of fuel prices and the costt of items have gone up it is also affecting input. So we are buying food at much more higher prices than what we are anticipating”.
