‘Stop paying lip-service to agric’

THE President of the Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana (PFAG), Mr Mohammed Adam Nashiru, has asked politicians to stop paying lip-service to the development of agriculture, especially when it comes to giving assistance to peasant farmers.
He said over the years, the fortunes of small and peasant farmers had dwindled seriously through some policies that were inimical to local food and cash crop producers, a situation that had made agriculture unattractive to the youth.
Mr Nashiru was speaking at a one-day interaction with presidential aspirants in Accra. Organised by the PFAG, in collaboration with other sister organisations, the interaction was meant to afford the presidential aspirants the opportunity to tell the farmers what their party manifestos had for the small-scale farmers.
He said in the name of liberalisation, farmers who cultivated cotton, rice, sheabutter, poultry and other agricultural produce were left completely destitute.
He said apart from making the people poorer, the youth, especially those from the northern sector, were having no option than to migrate to the south to look for non-existing jobs.
Of all the seven political parties, however, it was only the presidential aspirant of the Convention People’s Party (CPP), Dr Paa Kwesi Nduom, who availed himself of the meeting and presented a copy of his documented speech to the association.

.