Research findings reveal challenges confronting PFJs Programme

By Anthony Apubeo, GNA  

Bolgatanga, Sept. 13, GNA – A research
conducted on the one-year implementation of government’s flagship programme:
“Planting for Food and Jobs,” has revealed some challenges confronting its
successful implementation.

The research was conducted by the Civil
Society in Agriculture Platforms in 2017 in 90 communities across 30
metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies (MMDAs) in three regions;
Northern, Upper East and Upper West.

It was part of the Northern Ghana Governance
Activity (NGGA) Project of promoting responsive agriculture development in
those regions. 

The research findings were made known at a
stakeholders’ forum organised by the Consortium of Non-Governmental
Organisations implementing the five-year NGGA Project.

It brought together municipal and district
directors of agriculture, civil society and women platforms in agriculture,
staff of the Regional Coordinating Council, and the media among others drawn
from the Project implementation areas in the Upper East Region.

The NGGA Project is being funded by the United
States Agency for International Development (USAID) and Feed the Future’s
Northern Ghana Governance Activity, through the United States Government’s
Global Hunger and Food Security Initiative.

The research, which implored the Community
Score Card Methodology, revealed that there was long distance to fertilizer and
seed distribution points, which made many of the farmers to incur additional
costs.

It further identified the low participation of
women famers in the PFJs as a result of majority of them not being properly
targeted.

Whilst it identified the low involvement of
Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty beneficiaries and Persons with
Disabilities in the implementation of the PFJs programme, it mentioned
inadequate sharing of information about the programme’s benefits to many of the
farmers as another problem.

Non-existence of complaint and feedback
mechanisms at the district levels, the cumbersome nature of payment of monies
for farm inputs due to the long distance of designated banks from farming
communities, inadequate number of agricultural extension agents (AEAs),
especially women AEAs, logistical challenges, as well as political interference
in the implementation of the programme were also identified.

Some recommendations made by the research are
that government must ensure timely release of adequate quantity of fertilizers
and seeds, and the adequate provision of logistical support in the budget
including motorbikes and fuel for AEAs.

It underscored the need for government to lift
the ban on employment for the Ministry of Food and Agriculture to recruit AEAs
of which 40 per cent should be women to provide extension services to women
farmers.

The research recommended that MMDCEs should
avoid interfering in the distribution of the subsidised farm inputs and rather
concentrate on the monitoring of the effective implementation of the Project.

It advocated for a multi-pronged approach in
communicating the benefits and modalities of access to PFJs programmes to
farmers, adequate sharing of information on PFJs in the various dominant local
languages, establishment of public–private partnership arrangement with the
agro-input dealers to sell seed using the coupon system, and a 40 per cent
quota to be reserved for women farmers at the district level.

The NGGA Project, which is in its third year
of implementation, is being executed in the Bongo, Nabdam, Talensi, and Bawku
West districts and the Bolgatanga, Kassena-Nankana and Bawku Municipal
Assemblies in the Upper East Region.

GNA

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