Afriyie Akoto reiterates plans to sell ‘cheaper foodstuff’ at Agric Ministry

The Minister for Food and Agriculture, Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto has reiterated the government’s intention to transport food from the rural areas to Accra in a bid to deal with rising food inflation.

According to Dr Akoto, data gathered by the Ministry shows massive disparities between prices at the production areas and urban centers due to the costs within the value chain.

Answering an urgent question from the Gomoa East MP Desmond De-Graft Paitoo, the Agric Minister said the government wants to ensure that cheaper food is accessible to the majority of Ghanaians.

“Food accessibility in Ghana has been less than satisfactory in recent times, the price hikes of food commodities in urban areas, especially in Accra, is creating an enormous assertion that food has become inaccessible.”

“Prices in urban areas, particularly in Accra, are a far cry from what pertains in production centres in the regions. Many attribute this to the high increase in fuel and the costs of transportation, while this may be true to some extent, our analysis reveals that this may be exaggerated.”

“Government and the Ministry are arranging to transport food from the production centres directly to Accra to provide food at reasonable prices.”

The Agric Minister first disclosed the government’s plan to begin selling foodstuff within its premises to serve people in Accra when he engaged farmers in Sefwi Wiaso in the Western North Region on Thursday, November 3.

“We are going to link up with the farm gate so that we make all the arrangements to ensure that we put up kiosks on our compounds at the ministry, specifically for food from here [Sefwi Wiaso] and we are going to give it a lot of publicity,” the minister said.