Subsidy of 400 million GHC for 1 million farmers

Company News of Thursday, January 24, 2019

Source: thefinderonline.com

2019-01-24

This year, the government is providing a grant of 400 million GHC to at least 1,000,000 beneficiary farmers through the "Plant for Food and Create Jobs" (PFJ) program.

With this in mind, the government must make available to these farmers 320,000 metric tons of organic and inorganic fertilizers.

More than 40 companies that participated in a call for tenders were selected to provide organic and inorganic fertilizers.

These companies must import, remove fertilizers from the port of entry and distribute them to the regions and districts for sale to farmers through their licensed sales agents.

The Minister of Agriculture, Owusu Afriyie Akoto, revealed this information yesterday by launching the 2019 National Fertilizer Subsidy Program.

The country loses $ 12 million a year due to the smuggling of seeds and fertilizer to neighboring countries.

In this context, the sectoral minister urged all farmers, input dealers and all stakeholders to play an effective role in the program to ensure that agricultural inputs from the government are used appropriately. in the interest of Ghanaians and not in contraband. neighboring countries.

According to him, within the PJF, the government dreams of maximizing food production in the country, saying that after the successful successive campaigns conducted in 2017 and 2018, the country enjoys an exceptional harvest that allowed the Ghana to export excess food such as corn. , sorghum, cowpea, plantain and yams in Burkina Faso and Côte d'Ivoire.

He added that in addition to the maize, rice, sorghum, soybean, peanut and cbadava crops promoted in 2017 and 2018, crops such as cowpeas, orange-fleshed sweet potatoes, plantain and yam were added as part of the 2019 campaign.

Vegetable crops such as cabbage, lettuce, carrots, cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers and onions, he said, will still be promoted in 2019.

As part of this launch, the ministry announced the selling prices of the various inputs for the 2019 crop year starting January 23, 2019.

All types of inorganic NPK fertilizers are priced at 75 GHC per 50 kg bag and urea for GHC70 per 50 kg bag.

For organic fertilizers, Granular, Compost and Liquid are priced at 45 GHC per 25 kg bag, 20 GHC per 50 kg bag and 19 GHC per liter.

Farmers and the general public are therefore urged to report any distributor selling subsidized fertilizer above advertised prices to any agriculture official or the nearest safety agency.

For seeds, corn (OPV), rice, sorghum and groundnut seed are sold at a price of 2 GHC per kg, while corn (hybrid), soybean and cowpea are sold at a price of 3 GHC per kg.

After the launch, all participating fertilizer and seed companies are invited to begin distribution in regions, districts and farming communities.

Operational modalities

To ensure efficiency and value for money and minimize contraband in the distribution of fertilizer to beneficiary farmers under the PFJ, the Ministry will implement the following implementation modalities with the support from National Builders Corps (NABCO) officials.

NABCO representatives will be installed in all retail outlets in the three northern regions to oversee and record the quantities of fertilizer and seed sold to farmers.

Retail sales records will be linked to NABCO representatives and invoices generated and submitted by businesses to the department for payment.

In addition, all fertilizers and seeds will be bagged with PFJ tags and fertilizers for sale in the three northern regions will be packaged only in 25 kg bags and those for sale in the southern area will be packaged in 50 kg bags.

In addition, all copies of the transport bills on all lots of fertilizer and seed must be submitted to the Regional Coordination Councils through the Regional Directors of Agriculture.

He said the ministry would continue to support institutions such as universities, colleges, churches, prisons and chiefs with fertilizer, seeds and subsidized tractors if needed.

In dealing with the threat of an army worm outbreak, he said the task force set up to tackle the problem had completed its mission.

Dr. Akoto called on the public, especially farmers, to immediately inform their extension workers and district authorities when they detect the outbreak.