Nation Under-Invests in Agriculture

By: Basiru Adam

Increased budgetary allocations, since 2003, to the agricultural sector have not resulted in a corresponding rise in the sector’s expected growth rate of 6 percent per annum, a study on government spending in agriculture by SEND-Ghana, an NGO, has revealed.

The report noted between 2003 and 2008 an average of 47 percent of total national budget was spent in the agricultural sector. There was, however, under investment in the sector “since an average of 53 percent of national budget to the sector has been expended on recurrent expenditure in the period under review.”

In spending an average of 9 percent of national budget on agriculture per annum, Ghana is said to have somewhat lived up to the Maputo Declaration which the country signed onto and which requires African governments to allocate at least 10 percent of national budgetary allocations to the agric sector. But SEND-Ghana’s study reveals that the allocations have been inadequate especially as far as the livelihoods of small holder farmers are concerned.

At the launch of the report in Accra, the Country Director of SEND-Ghana, Mr. Samuel Zan Akologo, said government should go beyond the rhetoric and come out with “a special investment fund and budgetary allocations which tackle only small holder agricultural development.”

The study noted for instance that there were regional disparities in the allocations made in the sector “to the disadvantage of major food crop producing areas namely, Upper East, Upper West, Northern and Brong Ahafo Regions. Between 2002 and 2008, these regions have received 3 percent, 7 percent, and 3 percent of allocations to the sector respectively.”

Another noteworthy aspect of the report is that over 80 percent of small holder farmers, who produce the bulk of Ghana’s foodstuffs, do not have access to any irrigation schemes. Thus rain-fed agriculture remains the dominant method of farming in Ghana even though George Ashiabi of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture would say that his outfit has, for the past two years, “rehabilitated all irrigation schemes in the country.”

Of the small percent of farmers with access to irrigation, 60 percent rely on non-mechanised small irrigation schemes. “Also…disparities exist in regional access to irrigation with farmers in the Greater Accra Region having greater access than their counterparts in the three northern regions.”

Here, Mr. Akologo argued that increased investment in “especially irrigation” is possible and that it could lift many farmers, including areas with shorter raining season, out of poverty. “Neighbouring Burkina Faso has done it. Why not Ghana?” he asked.

Indeed, several dams constructed by the Nkrumah administration in the three northern regions have been left to flatten and dry up over the years. The German Techincal Corporation (GTZ) has, in recent times, been helping communities in self-help projects to adopt simple technologies in rehabilitating the dams.

The SEND-Ghana report also makes reference to the utilization of tractor services by small holder farmers. Here, it noted that while nearly 60% of farmers have access to tractor services, they rely on commercial tractor service providers “who charge exorbitant prices shooting up production cost”. It added that there is little use of district assembly tractor although charges are lower than commercial service costs.

On the issue of credit, only 16 percent were said to have benefitted “during this crop season.”

Recommendations made by the report included the fact that the Africa Union (AU), through NEPAD, must review the 10% minimum allocation it proposes for the agricultural sectors of African countries and that Ghana, on its part, must aim at redefining the Maputo Declaration “so that the 10 percent threshold should exclude recurrent expenditure.”

Reviewing the report however, Prof. Ramatu Alhassan of the University of Ghana, said the 10 percent was only a minimum and that it was within the will of countries to go beyond it.

While hailing the report as been “by and large very balanced,” the Professor of Agriculture regretted its apparent “silence” on gender.

SOURCE: PUBLIC AGENDA