Ghana cannot be a top agric country Abayori

The president of the National Farmers and Fishermen Award Winners Association, Philip Abayori has downplayed a new report by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) which ranks Ghana as one of the top five performing agricultural countries in the world.

According to him, Ghana cannot be among the world’s top performing agric countries as it is a net importer of rice from Vietnam and Thailand.

The ODI report names Ghana together with Benin, Nigeria and the United Arab Emirates as top performing countries which have seen some 5.1% increase in their agriculture sector over the past 25 years.

But speaking on Multi TV’s current affairs program, PM EXPRESS, Mr. Abayori said the report could not be accurate.

According to him, “from 1990 to 1999 agriculture contributed 41.3% of G.D.P and employed 54% of the population. Today, agriculture contributes 34% to GDP and still employs the same 54% of the population. Secondly, if you look at general progress, foodstuff sufficiency, improving incomes of the producer, etc is static.”

Mr. Abayori also indicated that Ghana’s agricultural sector performed exceedingly better between 1972 and 1989 where it produced nearly all the country’s rice needs and even exported some to the sub region.
“We were not importing much chicken [during that period] but today we are a net importer of chicken” he added.

According to the ODI report, Ghana is performing better than Vietnam, China and other agriculture-based countries.

Dr. Liesbet Steer, a Research Associate at ODI who worked on the report, said Ghana’s progress in the agriculture sector has helped reduce poverty levels in the country over a 15-year-period from 52% to 28%.

With this progress made, she was optimistic that Ghana would meet the first goal of the Millennium Development Goal which is to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger by 2015.

Story by Etornam Tsormey/Shirley Agyen/Multi TV