The government of Ghana has been charged by the Centre for Climate Change and Food Security (CCCFS) to implement actionable plans to reverse the current high food prices and growing food insecurity in the country. The CCCFS has also called on the government to deepen its agricultural investment efforts, especially the flagship planting for food and jobs initiative.
The policy advocacy group believes this channel would shore up food production and provide more employment opportunities, despite the country’s current economic challenges.
“Therefore, we call on the government to implement actionable plans to reverse the tide of high food prices and growing food insecurity in the country.”
In a statement to observe the 2022 World Food Day, the Deputy Director of Research in charge of Food and Nutrition Security, Dr Jacob Sarfo, stated there must be a bold step taken to reverse the country’s food import dependence and a move away from being a net importer of food so that, “We are not heavily affected by exogenous shocks as we are currently witnessing.”
Illegal mining
Dr Sarfo also lamented illegal mining popularly known as galamsey has become a major threat to the country’s food security, adding the impact of harmful chemicals on soil fertility and water bodies makes Ghana’s food production levels are project low.
“With reports of farmers abandoning farming to be galamseyers and the impact of harmful chemicals from Galamsey in our soils and water bodies, our food production levels are projected to be low, unable to meet our food security needs and eventually exacerbate hunger and poverty” he emphasized.
Dr Sarfo argued that the social intervention of the government must be deepened and expanded to cover the many people affected by the ongoing global and local crises especially in rural areas.
Highlighting on the theme for this year’s World Food Day: “Leave no one behind”, Dr Sarfo noted the theme could not have been more relevant now looking at the ongoing global crises, i.e, COVID-19, the war in Europe, the climate crisis, soaring fuel and food prices, etc, which he added require more than ever the need for governments to protect the poor and vulnerable as they are the ones that these crises would highly hit.
