The PFAG, as part of the zonal consultation exercise on the PFJ 2.0 organized the middle belt consultative workshop with stakeholders in Techiman, in the Bono East region. The workshop which forms part of the project on Deepening agricultural governance, under the Together Against Poverty (TAP) program, supported by OXFAM, brought together stakeholders including farmers, input dealers, department of agriculture regional and district officers from the Bono, Bono East, Ahafo and the Ashanti regions. The objective of the workshop was to sensitize farmers and other stakeholders on the modalities of the PFJ 2.0 while providing a platform for stakeholders to share their experiences regarding the current stage of the PFJ 2.0 implementation. In addition, the workshop sought to solicit feedback from stakeholders to enhance the implementation of the program for the benefit of farmers.
The Acting Executive Director of the association, Mr. Bismark Owusu Nortey in his address, narrated the transition of the government’s Planting for Food and Jobs which has been reviewed to the PFJ 2.0 that seeks to support farmers to access credit through a smart input credit system with a focus to contributing to food availability and job creation. He further stated that similar engagement has been conducted in the Northern belt where stakeholders identified peculiar challenges faced at the initial roll out of the PFJ 2.0 and called on participants to share their insights and perspectives of the program’s implementation for redress.
The Bono East regional director of the department of agriculture, Mr. James Adu, reiterated the benefits and challenges encountered in the previous government program which has resulted in the birth of the PFJ 2.0. He indicated that after the program was launched in 2023, three sensitization sessions have been organized for farmers and other stakeholders at the national, regional and district levels. Participants were entreated to support the government’s program to ensure sustainability.
Stakeholders were then taken through the modalities of the PFJ 2.0 which prioritizes eleven commodities relating to vegetables, grains and legumes, tubers and livestock (poultry broiler). The role of several actors including master aggregator, sub-aggregators, financial institutions, and other service providers were highlighted. Moreover, farmers were encouraged to register under the Ghana Agriculture and Agribusiness Platform (GHAAP) in order to benefit from the programme. Several stakeholders shared their experiences encountered during the initial roll-out of the program, which included slow pace of registration of farmers, limited logistics for registration coupled with the drudgery nature of collecting coordinates of farmlands and poor and limited sensitization of farmers on the program. The timing of the roll-out of the program was also questioned, as the farming season was fast approaching and majority of farmers in the region and across the country have not been registered yet, while others called for a piloting of the program in 2024 with full implementation the next year.
The feedbacks from the various municipal directors of the department of agriculture showed that less than fifty percent of the total farmer population have been registered and rolled onto the GHAAP. To this end, farmers were encouraged to cooperate with their respective officers of the department of agriculture and extension officers, by getting registered to benefit from the program.