Post harvest management challenges hinder gains made from PFJ programme – Esoko
Agricultural Technical and Research firm, Esoko, says that post- harvest management challenges is hindering gains made from government’s Planting for Food and Jobs programme.
The research firm has observed that though the country had been recording high yields in production boosted by the PFJ programme for sometime, challenges found in the transportation, processing and storage value chain were negating the gains.
This, Esoko indicated had also led to fluctuations in food prices in the country.
Mr. Francis Danso–Adjei, a Content Manager at Esoko, noted that when post harvest management challenges were resolved, the PFJ would contribute immensly to stabilizing the prices of food commodities that often fluctuated on the market during off seasons.
Mr. Danso- Adjei, noted that overcoming the post–harvest challenge was a shared responsibility between the private sector and the government.
He, therefore, urged the government to come up with a well thought out policy and provide for the needed sector to address the challenges.
“After production what normally happens is that along the post harvest chain, it goes into the hands of traders, aggregators and others and most of these people in the industry are in the private sector.
“So what the government can do is to facilitate the establishment of more warehouses and access to vehicles to enable them to buy the produce and find their own storage if they do not have access to the storage from the government”, he said.
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Meanwhile, Mr. Bagbara Tanko, the Public Relations Officer for the Ministry for Food and Agriculture, noted that the ministry had put in place interventions to address the challenges.
He added that the intervention included the establishment of warehouses, procurement of harvesters and other handheld machines, as well as rice milling machines for mechanisation purposes.
Among others, he showed that the ministry imported a total of 8,980 units of various machinery and equipment and distributed between 2019 and 2020 to 927 beneficiaries in 33 District Assemblies.
Additionally, there had been the completion of 21 warehouses, which formed part of a total of 80 with the capacity to store up to 80,000 metric tonnes of food items, all aimed at ensuring food security in the country.
Mr. Tanko says he is confident that these interventions would position PFJ to change the narrative.
