Naagyei 90.3 Fm Agyapa
The 2020 Presidential candidate of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has described the Akufo-Addo government’s flagship programme “Planting for Food and Jobs” as a failure.
The former President has predicted a likely food shortage to hit the country in 2022 if the government does not pump more funds into the programme.
Speaking on Moonlite FM in Sunyani as part of his “Thank You Tour”, Mr Mahama said the rising cost of crops can be attributed to the failure of the government to fund the programme which was started by his administration.
“Before NPP government assumed office, we’d entered into an agreement with Canada and they gave us some funds to be invested into our agriculture. But the Akufo Addo government after inheriting the funds named it “Planting for Food and Jobs”, it was originally a programme that we were working on.”
Justifying why he asserts the Planting for Food & Jobs Programme is a failure, Mr Mahama stated that many farmers including his own brother are yet to receive fertilizers promised by the Akufo-Addo government.
“My brother is a farmer and he tells me this year, he has not received any fertilizer supply from government and so he bought his own fertilizer and a bag of fertilizer is very expensive. Normally, he cultivates 300 acres of maize each year. But this year, he had to reduce it, he was not able to cultivate even 80 acres. So there’s a possibility of food shortage next year because the Planting for Food & Jobs Programme has failed.”
