Food and Agriculture Minister, Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto, has said that documents from his ministry that show that Ghana’s maize production in 2018 was around 600,000 metric tons is wrong.
The Ministry of Food and Agriculture’s Operational Performance (2017-2018) report prepared by the ministry’s research department showed maize production for 2018 was 637,200 tons.
In a Citi FM interview monitored by GhanaWeb, the minister said, “No, no, before we came into office, the highest maize production in Ghana was 1.8 million metric tons. We have increased that to 3.1 million metric tons by 2020 … the total production (in 2018) was never 637,000 metric tons.
“You are being too technical here; you are asking me statistics … I cannot sit here and give you specific statistics, but if you say that Ghana’s total production of maize is around 600,000, I will challenge you to that, is not true. It is never true (that we produce around 600,000)… this document is wrong.
The minister also refuted claims of food shortage in the country, saying that “we are in a very comfortable position. Before 2017, we were importing food into the country, even plantain from Côte d’Ivoire.
“I am saying that we have statistics to show the amount of food that we have been exporting to neighbouring countries has been going up. If we didn’t have a surplus, how could we be selling food to our neighbours,” he said.
The minister, however, accepted that there was a shortage of animal feed in 2020 due to a drought in the forest belt of Ghana, which reduced the production of maize and other grains.
He added that the drought was ameliorated by the increase in grains production in the Savana Region due to the success of the Planting for Food and Jobs programme.
Source: www.ghanaweb.com