Patriots for Peace and Development (PPD) is calling on the government to set up an agro industrialisation initiative under the 1D1F Secretariat of the Ministry of Agriculture.

“The agro focused industrialisation should be placed under the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) since it has the convergence of technologies and is well entrenched because it trains the agriculture extension officers. It has demonstrated professionalism and hard work under the one district one factory initiative by making available tax incentives for companies under MOFA,” PPD said in a statement.

This, according to the PPD, would enable enterprises  and institutions to deliver material inputs to the farming sector and transform , distribute and otherwise add value to agricultural and food products targeting and identified market demand effectively in the country.

PDD cites a NASDAQ report captioned “the Good, the Bad and the Ugly”, to buttress its points.

That report states that “the good news is that we have been reminded the lessons that had been forgotten from the 2008-2009 recession. Investors in the Risk Zone, who cannot afford much risk, are nonetheless invested about 60/40 stock/bonds. Consequently, they suffered significant losses in their target date funds. The bad news is that the economy is already in a recession and likely to get even worse. Some have described the recent run-up in stock prices as a ‘bear rally’ that will not last long.”

PPD said the agro focused industrialisation should be facilitated by MOFA in partnership with the private sector and in collaboration with other financial institutions because the agric sector is the major backbone for everyone to survive.

The MOFA, according to PPD, has proven that its inputs into the 1D1F is what has catapulted the growth of many factories in the country.

The statement, issued in Accra and signed by Richard Danso, Convener of the group, said Ghana is 60 to 70 per cent agro driven and “that is why we say the focus should be on agro industrialisation.”

According to the statement, the country needs to focus on commodities such as rice, soya beans, pineapple, cashew, citrus, cassava, maize, cocoa processing, avocado, sweet potato among others, saying these are the very commodities that could bring back Ghana’s economy in the next five years.

“The government should take agriculture seriously by setting up a directorate within the Ministry of Agriculture for agro-industrial transformation. In the next five years, the world is likely to experience food drought, as wise as the President is like Joseph in the Bible, the President must wise up quickly and take agro-processing as a serious venture and separate it from any other Ministry and put it under the agric ministry, this is to give it the needed support and supervision” it said.

The government must see agriculture industrialisation as the main unit for growth hence must put all resources and tools to make sure that the agro industrialisation is working, it said.

“The Covid-19, which is very scary, has proven to us that agriculture and agro-processing are what we need us a country. The likely scarcity of food after the Covid-19, may lead to commodity price inflation. Food inflation has been in single digit for the past six months or so which has resulted into lower inflation for the country. However during the recent partial lockdown, prices of food commodity went up astronomically due to panic buying which may not drop now” it said.

The negative impact of Covid-19 on exports, imports, taxes, and foreign exchange receipts will culminate in a slowdown in economic activity. GDP growth is forecasted to decline to 5.0 percent in a baseline scenario.

In the worst-case scenario, GDP growth estimates could be halved to about 2.5 per cent in 2020. 

These assessments are preliminary as the situation is very fluid and the degree of uncertainty concerning the outbreak is very high. This means that there is a likelihood that these assessments could change rapidly.  

There is also a likelihood of export restrictions from advanced economies and other emerging market economies which could create supply chain shortages for Ghanaian businesses, with significant impact on imports of intermediate and capital goods, as well as consumption goods.

This is expected to negatively affect inputs in the domestic production channels with severe consequences for growth and tax revenues which could become more pronounced by the second or third quarter.