A major national concern today is the high cost of food, including raw and perishable and processed ones such as tomato, spices and dairy products.
The truth is that when we have a section of civil society claiming that we cannot blame COVID-19 and the Russia-Ukraine conflict on our socio-economic woes, it is because we dithered in putting restrictions on unbridled import of fancy commodities, including toothpicks, rice and edible oils as well as poultry and other processed meat products.
So opponents of government gloated in accusing it by comparing Ghana to Cote d’Ivoire and Nigeria or Burkina Faso and Togo, where prices of food items have been traditionally manageable.
Relevant intervention
Thank God, government listened, and quickly moved in to institute an intervention in reducing imports, while developing enhanced policies to expand the food security sector in securing foods, creating jobs, and also saving scarce foreign exchange.
Months on, with food prices still high, partly due to trader and importer intransigence, it is becoming imperative that some bolder or more biting measures need to be put in place to reduce food inflation for the benefit of the teeming millions of workers and other Ghanaians in rural communities who scrounge for daily rations.
We must, however, admit that engaging foodstuff traders and other informal economy workers in the agricultural chain poses challenges that can only be surmounted through healthy consensus building.
Foodstuff trade facts
Most of our crop and livestock trade is done on credit basis or through part payment. That makes the sector risky and intrigue-laden. As the media revealed in the last couple of days, traders and transporters buying on credit and absconding is a veritable feature of the turbulent local and cross border trade.
It is worse when the turf is infested with intermediaries, with Burkina Faso, for instance, about a decade ago cautioning its producers in vegetables to supply only on contract basis.
The challenge, however, has been how to digitise the sector in putting names to faces.
Building consensus
When a senior lecturer at the Department of Economics, Prof Eric Osei-Assibey, therefore, calls on government to work closely with stakeholders to bring down food inflation, the Daily Statesman believes it is time for conceiving a holistic framework that involves assemblies, producers, wholesalers or farm-gate buyers as well as transporters and driver unions to sit down and talk.
Speaking at an event held by the American Chamber of Commerce-Ghana on the 2023 Outlook Report, the university don lamented the unacceptable rise in food inflation from 59.7% in December 2022 to 61% in January 2023. We agree with him when he says that requires the adoption of relevant policies in bringing down the rate.
Healthy engagement
It is the expectation of the Daily Statesman that even as state and non-state stakeholders engage, focus would be on Ghana and development of the agro value chain to deliver for the benefit of all actors, particularly the producer who is short-changed in the chain by the intermediary, farm-gate buyer and transporter.
Unfortunately, it takes huge investment in developing strategies that regulate the volatile sector infested by goons and intermediaries.
As any expert would agree, such a programme will require a social protection policy, with the banking and insurance, as well as local government, sectors leading.
MoTI/MoFA initiatives
The Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, together with Ministry of Trade and Industry as well as Ministry of Food and Agriculture are already in some relationship over trade. It should therefore not be too challenging to create a platform for monitoring trade in foodstuffs for the mutual benefit of state and non-state actors.
A stitch in time, the sages say, saves nine. It is therefore time for GUTA, GNTTTA and other bodies to work with state institutions to make life comfortable for all Ghanaians, including our kids in schools across the country.
Having food and transport costs alone eating too deep into the pockets of workers or families is a huge threat to society. That must collectively be fought from all fronts.
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