The General Agricultural Workers Union of Ghana (GAWU) says the cost of food will shoot up in the last quarter of the year.
According to GAWU, farmers across the country are reeling from hikes in fuel prices.
General Secretary of the Union, Edward Kareweh said farmers continue to accrue losses whenever prices are adjusted upwards.
Passing on the cost to consumers, he says, will be the decision by farmers between now and December.
“We should expect high prices because prices are a function of a number of things. It’s not only about production and then in any case even when farmers produce enough it goes waste. Fuel prices have gone up again. Cargo is the one that transports food to the market. Subsequently, this could result in a hike in food prices,” Edward Kareweh told JoyBusiness.
So far, the government has announced programs and policies aimed at reviving the Agric sector. The planting for food and jobs, for instance, is believed to have created about 750,000 jobs so far. But these policies, including the one village one dam, according to Edward Kareweh has not addressed the case of food security in the country.
Agriculture was the second contributor to GDP in 2017. This can be seen in the rebased GDP which indicates the services sector grew by 3.3 per cent, industry leading with 15.7 per cent and Agriculture at 6.1 per cent.
The Agriculture sector remains one of the leading contributors to GDP, though its output stayed marginal. So far, the World Bank has warned of dire consequences for Ghana’s Agric sector if the government does not take steps to invest more to address problems within the sector.
According to the 3rd Ghana Economic Update report from the World Bank, the Agric sector has witnessed declining trends in contribution to GDP since the year 2010 while there has been a rise in the extractive industries which appears to be constraining the agricultural sector growth.
Program Lead from the World Bank, Errol Graham, said improving the environment for agricultural businesses is necessary to avert any negative future consequences.
He said, “Agriculture share of GDP is falling and this could be a result of a number of factors. One clear case we see is that the share of industry is rising and the share of services is also rising and so that’s crowding out the share of agriculture.”