Scorecard: Farmer chides extension officers

There are some policy issues that need urgent attention if the Agric sector is to improve, the Chief Executive of Anyarko farms has said.

Richard Nunekpeku argued that despite successes chalked with progressive policies such as Planting for Food and Jobs, there is a lot of room for improvement.

He was appraising the Akufo-Addo administration on “The Scorecard” programme on Joy FM.

The farmer believes that, policymakers should prioritise increasing productivity in the sector rather than focusing on production.

“The current agenda seems to be focused on increasing the number of acres we are producing; however, we should be looking at what are we getting from those acres,” he stated.

“…if you produce 1000 acres and you get 1.8 metric tons, which is the current national average, then where are we going, when we can produce 100 acres and get 7.5 metric tons which is more productive,” he added.

Speaking on the status of Agric extension officers, Mr. Nunekpeku noted that the officers are not competent enough to help the farmers to make informed decisions about what crop to grow on which soil and the quantity of fertiliser to use.

Richard Nunekpeku

“We have looked at Agric as an art but it is also science … do these Agric officers know that it is not maize you are supposed to grow on this site, but rather pepper because the nutrient in the soil won’t support maize, [the answer is] they don’t,” he stated.

He added that the bigger devil to this problem is that the government decides to fly officers abroad to go and learn these skills so they could implement such knowledge when they return home.

“When they come back, their contribution is minimal because their environment is not the same,” he said.

“…agric is not like medical sciences where all humans are the same so if you go to a university in the US and return to Ghana, you are better off practicing medicine. Agric is local, the ecosystems are different so if you send somebody to Israel or Brazil; their control environment is not the same as ours so what we should focus on is bringing these experts to Ghana,” he explained.

Deputy Minister of Agric, Sagre Bambangi who was also on the panel blamed the insufficient number of extension officers on the erstwhile administration which placed an embargo on public sector employment as part of an IMF programme.

Dr Sagre Bambangi 

He added that the Akufo-Addo-led administration gave clearance under the Youth Employment Agency for officers to be employed.

“They are trained by accredited institutions and they are supervised by production officers,” he stated.

He added that challenges that have faced in the past is lack of logistics to work with among others. 

Watch the discussion below

Read Full Story