The government has been advised to adopt private sector-led measures to revitalise the Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) and One District-One Factory (1D1F) initiatives.

Doing so would be a strategic step towards tackling inflation and reducing reliance on imported food commodities while supporting agro-processing businesses, two Economists have said.

Dr Benjamin Amoah, a Senior Lecturer with the Department of Finance at the University of Ghana Business School (UGBS), and Dr Daniel Anim-Prempeh, a Chief Economist with the Policy Initiative for Economic Development (PIED) made the recommendation.

They said this in exclusive interviews with the Ghana News Agency on their expectations of the John Dramani Mahama-led government, highlighting the importance of the PFJ and 1D1F initiatives.

The two initiatives were introduced in 2017 under the erstwhile government to promote food security, economic growth, and support Ghana’s industrialisation drive, but have not yielded the expected results.

It targeted increased production of rice, tomato, pepper, onion, soybean, sorghum, plantain, yam, cassava, and poultry, most of which are imported from Ghana’s neighbouring countries and overseas, by eliminating bottlenecks in the agricultural value chain.

Dr Amoah called for enhanced collaboration between the State’s implementing agencies and the private sector to ensure the effective implementation of initiatives to propel sustainable economic growth and development.

He noted that such a partnership would bring about the provision of the needed resources and expertise for a turnaround of the PFJ, 1D1F, and other related initiatives by the new government while creating jobs in the agricultural value chain.

According to the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS), 13 out of the 15 top-ranked items that drove the country’s inflation for six years (from 2018 to 2024) were food items.

Dr Amoah questioned the effectiveness of the implementation of government-led initiatives, like the PFJ and 1D1F, which were often “political.”

“You cannot go through about seven years of planting for food and jobs, especially on the food side, and then you have food inflation always increasing and food becoming expensive on the market,” he said.

“So, we can have something similar to that [PFJ], but we should try to bring in the private sector so that we can easily measure output and performance,” the Economist advocated.

“There should be a huge investment and coordination of agric sector initiatives like PFJ and 1D1F because we need food security and then at a competitive price,” said, Dr Anim-Prempeh.

He raised concern about the country spending about US$2 million to import tomatoes, as well as other foodstuff from Burkina Faso and neighbouring countries, and called for support for farmers and food processing companies.

“Until we support the private sector, including the manufacturing companies in our food basket regions, produce energy at affordable prices and solve the cost of capital issue, there will be challenges, with our food systems,” he noted.

“We have competitive urge by the topography of our land. We have the competitive urge to produce so many things on our own. So, let us provide the needed assistance to the private sector to lead government initiatives.” Dr Anim-Prempeh.