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Company News of Thursday, February 14, 2019
Source: Elorm Desewu
2019-02-14
Minister of Food and Agriculture, Mr. Owusu Afriyie
Some international development organizations have welcomed the government's introduction of a barcode system on subsidized fertilizers in the country.
According to them, this new system would reduce corruption; improve agricultural productivity and the economy in general, which would have a knock-on effect on food security and the stability of the currency through import substitution.
The Ministry of Agriculture (MOFA) was warmly commended for the introduction of this barcode system, which aims to demonstrate accountability and reduce misuse of the nation's resources.
The MOFA has been the basis of industrialization in the country and the government should support the latter to achieve the desired results for the country.
Agriculture experts argue that the government, focused on the MOFA and Plant for Food and Employment sectors, should be at the center of the agenda, as it encourages children to buy affordable food as part of the program. SHS free program, is a good source of raw material for a district mill and supports the country's balance. payment by substitution to imports.
If the expected government support arrives, it means that the country will record another surplus of the food basket, as it did last year.
MOFA introduced a new electronic and traceable coding to monitor the government's program of fertilizer subsidies and farm inputs for farmers.
The new service requires that every farmer who wishes to benefit from the subsidy be registered biometrically, but for farmers already registered, he may have access to the purchase of fertilizer.
Before any purchase, a store agent would take the farmer's fingerprint and match it with the code on the fertilizer bag.
The code identifies the region, area, type of fertilizer, source, distributor, and retailer contact information. He will be able to track all the fertilizer bags and inputs from the suppliers to the end user, the farmer.
The new technology should eliminate fertilizer smuggling in the country, as subsidized fertilizers would now have a special code such as the tax stamp set up by the Ghana Revenue Authority.
This traceability technique is the most affordable off-grid and real-time technology to improve service and provide an optimized platform. Retailers will receive a set of scannable codes to label their entries based on the badigned amount.
This new, highly efficient and traceable fertilizer subsidy management system aims to ensure that farmers who have registered biometrically benefit from the government's fertilizer subsidy.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is currently deploying around 2,600 agents in all the country's fertilizer shops to register farmers with biometrics.
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