Lecturer calls for Stakeholder dialogue on prices of agricultural products
Dr Edward Ebo Onumah, Senior Lecturer, Department of Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness, University of Ghana, has called for a stakeholder dialogue on the prices of agricultural products in the country.
Dr Onumah said a control price mechanism should be put in place to harmonise the prices of agricultural products at all markets across the regions.
Dr Onumah said this on Friday in Accra to mark this year’s African Statistics Day, which falls on November 18.
The programme was on the theme: ” Strengthening Data Systems by Modernising the Production and Use of Agricultural Statistics: Informing Policies with a View to Improving Resilience in Agriculture, Nutrition, and Food Security in Africa”.
Dr Onumah said the sale of farm produce at farm gate prices at the Ministry of Food and Agriculture in Accra ” may expose our market traders as to whether they are really transparent in their pricing of foodstuffs”.
He called for a targeted investment in mechanised agriculture and research to ensure food security.
He said sustainable agriculture was key to the development of any country and stressed that food stability could be achieved with agricultural resilience.
“We can achieve all this with accurate information to influence decision making,” he said.
The 2021 Food and Agriculture Organization report on food security in the world shows that 2.3 billion people were moderately or severely food insecure.
Also, 140 million people in Africa face acute food insecurity due to persistent drought and countries that rely on Russia and Ukraine for the importation of wheat.
He called for a continued dialogue on scientifically rigorous evaluations of agricultural policies to inform decision-making.
“As a nation, we need accurate production statistics to regularly measure the progress of the agricultural sector.”
Professor Samuel Kobina Annim, the Government Statistician, said the Ghana Statistical Service had produced 25 routine publications and 12 census and survey reports that presented more than 150 indicators.
He said over 10 new indicators, such as vulnerable employment, labour transitions, the value of corruption, and consumer inflation, were all generated in 2022 for the six new regions.
The Professor unveiled the Service’s Change, Automation and Novelty agenda, which aimed to support the processes needed to transform the country into a statistic-driven society.
The Service launched the Data Science Roadmap and the agricultural statistics dashboard, which featured the release of the 2021 Population and Housing Census.