What happened to the food and jobs that the PFJ project promised? – Economist asks government
Professor Godfred Bokpin, an economist at the University of Ghana Business School, is interested in the effectiveness of the government’s Planting for Food and Jobs initiative.
He questioned whether the programme had actually produced the anticipated results since it was implemented.
Regarding the external factors that have an impact on the global food supply, he added that the development should be used to assess the viability of the Planting for Food & Jobs programme.
According to him, there shouldn’t be any food shortages in Ghana as a result of the turmoil in Ukraine and other areas of Europe if the project is working as smoothly as the administration would have everyone believe.
His remarks follow the European Commission’s decision to extend through September 15 a deal that allows five of Ukraine’s EU neighbours to impose import restrictions on grain from that country.
According to Reuters, the EU granted permission to the five nations of Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia on May 2 to prohibit internal sales of Ukrainian wheat, maize, rapeseed, and sunflower seeds while still allowing exports to other nations, including other EU nations, through transit through their borders.
Reuters claims that these limitations, which were put in place to reduce an excessive supply, were set to end on Monday. The five nations had asked for a delay because local grain production was becoming unprofitable due to the cheaper grain from Ukraine. Ukraine argued in favour of their removal.
By September 15, according to a statement from the European Commission, they would phase them out.
The Commission, which is in charge of directing EU trade policy, claimed that since storage space was still at a premium and bottlenecks persisted, the phase-out scheduled for mid-September would facilitate better grain exports from Ukraine and through the transit nations.
Tuesday, July 18, Prof. Bokpin noted on News 360 on TV3 that “because we spend nearly 44 percent of household income on food in Africa, the impact of food inflation there is significantly greater than it is in developing and established nations.”
When asked if Ghana had taken sufficient steps to feed itself in the face of a worldwide crisis, he responded, “Not at all; the perfect response to the government’s intervention in Planting for Food and Jobs is precisely this global shock.
“Had we done it well, we would have seen the real impact of that policy action. Where is the food, and where are the jobs? is the most crucial issue we must put to the administration. Showing that intervention’s effectiveness at this point is necessary. As you can see, however, it actually benefited a select few while the mass stood by and, like many other flagship schemes, was indifferent.