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General News of Sunday, May 5th, 2019
Source: mynewsgh.com
2019-05-05
Last year, 50,000 bags of fertilizer were smuggled out of the country.
The government's agriculture support program, Planting for Food and Employment, has suffered greatly from the smuggling of subsidized fertilizer to farmers at the initiative of unscrupulous people.
The Ministry of Agriculture has made a shocking revelation that a large number of fertilizers have been smuggled into neighboring countries, including Burkina Faso, Côte d Ivoire , Mali and up to Cameroon during the last crop year.
The department's director of crop services, Seth Akoto Osei, said that 50,000 bags of fertilizer had been smuggled out of the country under last year's voucher scheme. , which has since been discarded.
According to him, most of the distributors and retailers have lost thousands of Ghanaian cedis to the ministry, with fake fertilizer coupons being used to access fertilizer for food production and the creation of food. # 39; employment.
At a conference of input distributors held in Bolgatanga and organized by PETASGO Enterprise, the main distributors of fertilizer under the PFJ initiative in the Upper East region for the Raising awareness, as well as other stakeholders in the agricultural sector, revealed that new modalities had been applied for this year's agricultural season to end the contraband that characterized the season of last year.
Under the new arrangements, all seeds and fertilizers under the "Plant to feed and create jobs" program must be labeled.
Fertilizer distributors and retailers will also need the services of NABCO representatives before distributing them to farmers, while regional ministers and district / municipal leaders would receive and review the fertilizer roadmaps arriving on their behalf. territory.
The ministry has also implemented a software and coding system to code and track goods distributed by retailers and distributors.
The new terms and conditions replaced the voucher system.
In addition, seeds and fertilizers from Planting for Food and Jobs will be labeled PFJ and farmers in the five northern regions will be entitled to 25 kg of fertilizer at a price of 37.50 GHC for NPK and 35.00 GHC for urea colleagues from the South, 50 kg at the cost of 75 GHC for NPK and 70.00 GHC for Urea.
"Fertilizer and seed distributors and retailers in the different regions will have to liaise with officials recruited under NABCO, under the supervision of MMDCE, to distribute fertilizer at the point of sale. NABCO representatives will be placed at all retail outlets to oversee and record the quantities of fertilizer and seed sold to farmers to reduce the threat of smuggling, "said Mr. Akoto.
He added that 2,700 extension workers will be recruited this year to improve timely services to farmers.
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