Deputy Agric Minister, Yaw Frimpong has assured that prices of foodstuffs will normalise after the next harvesting season.
According to him, the hike in prices of food across markets in the country is as a result of the cycle of food production adding that in planting seasons prices usually rises.
Speaking on Top Story, he said that although there have been concerns raised about the recent prices hikes of products with many associating it with food shortage, Ghana is not facing a food crisis.
“I always give examples of yam. Before the new yam came in, they (yams) were being sold at ¢20. Now you cannot tell me that you can’t get yam the same size at ¢10. When they begin to harvest the maize, rice, sorghum, millet and all, you will see that the prices will find their level.”
“This is the process of market, demand and supply, and that thing is going to happen. I can assure you that in November/December, let’s talk again and see the stabilisation of these prices,” Mr Frimpong told Evans Mensah on Tuesday.
He added that the issue has been extraordinary this year because of the factors that affected production in 2020 amid the Covid-19 concerns.
His comment comes after experts in the Agricultural industry indicated that they foresee food shortages during the early months of the year 2022, due to current challenges with farming in the country.
The CEO of the Chamber of Agric, Anthony Morrison, said that “for the early part of next year, we will have challenges with our food systems, so we will need to import quite more.”
“What government needs to do is to make sure that when this year’s produce is ready, we should provide a mop-up strategy, so that we can store enough food across the country.”
However, the Deputy Agric Minister believes that Ghana will not face food insecurity adding that factors like the global market for fertilisers, the drought farmers faced among others affected production.
But, Ghana is “gradually getting over it,” he said.
“It can never be that this year we are in crises. We have never been in crisis. The crises period of food target in this country as far as my memory serves me right was 1983. We have not run into food insecurity.”
“If you have been in this country and you know the cycle of our food production in this country you know that every planting season prices go up and I am telling you that this year it has been extraordinary because of certain factors.”
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