Depreciating cedi driving up cost of food in Ghana -Chamber of Agribusiness

Some stakeholders in the agriculture sector say smallholder farmers are not receiving farm inputs from the Ministry of Food and Agriculture.

The CEO of the Chamber of Agribusiness Ghana, Anthony Morrison has linked the situation to rising cost of staple food as the depreciation of the cedi impact on farm inputs such as fertilizer and seed.

Speaking in an interview, Mr. Morrison urged the government to prioritize the supply of inputs to smallholder farmers to boost yields. He made these remarks on the sidelines of the Technical Stakeholders Breakfast Meeting in Accra.

He stated that in recent months, Ghana has witnessed a significant increase in food prices, a trend that has raised concerns among consumers and policymakers alike.

“The cedi depreciation is a major issue that affects farmers because most of the inputs are imported from Europe. This means that farmers will have to grapple with the high cost of inputs”, he said.
Mr. Morrison warned that farmers will become worse off if prices of basic farm inputs keep going up if the cedi depreciation continues.

“Don’t forget productivity downstream depends on inputs, seeds, agrochemicals, and fertilizers. 70% to 80% of these are all imported. As far as our cedi continues to depreciate, where we import these commodities from, like Asia and Europe and in the US, we will continue to have a higher cost of food production”.

He stated that the heavy reliance on imported agricultural inputs is a setback to growth of the sector.