Even though spending in the Agricultural sector, as a percentage of the total government expenditure as expressed in the 2023 budget presented by the Government of Ghana to parliament shows a marginal increase of 1.95 percent above the previous year’s figure of 1.86 percent, stakeholders are still asking for more.

At a National Budget Dialogue on Agro-Based Interventions, organised by the Center of Agricultural Productivity and Policy Studies (CAPPS) of the University for Development Studies, stakeholder expressed concern that the allocation is still far below the expected 10 percent commitment made under the Malabo declaration.

The stakeholders who included professionals from varied backgrounds including academia and industry, were unanimous in the claim that the 2023 budget failed to address the most crucial challenges facing the Agric sector.

The Director of the Center for Agricultural Productivity and Policy Studies (CAPPS), Dr. Franklyn Mabe, said the aim for organising the National Budget Dialogue on Agro-Based Interventions was to help collate the views of industry players, including people from the academia, civil society and peasant farmers to be considered by the government in the preparation of the next national budget. He said the current budget lacks drastic and far-reaching interventions to salvage the growing state of food insecurity in the country.

Ghana is a signatory to the Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Programme of 2003, which is often referred to as the Malabo Declaration. In the Malabo Declaration, member-countries were expected to increase agricultural investment to 10 percent of annual budgets to culminate into, at least, six percent growth in the sector annually; but Ghana has since 2003 failed to do that.  This was the highlight of a panel discussion during the event.

The panel was made up of Justina Onumah, a Senior Research Scientist and an Agricultural Development Economist at the Science and Technology Policy Research Institute (STEPRI), of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), and Dr. Emmanuel K. Magna, a Research Scientist, Fisheries and Aquaculture Division of the Water Research Institute.

Dr. Justin Onumah opined that it is imperative for the government to consider research as a measure for planning the National Budget, adding that research findings and recommendations must be consulted by policy makers, especially during budget preparations. She advised that for any country to be truly secure, it first needs to ensure that there is food security.

suggestions and recommendations were made by participants present in the workshop. One of the participants suggest that, the allocation of research finding should be made in Ghana which other members, stakeholders and policy makers can take part during analysis processes. In that students could also be able to get their research findings and that of travelling to other countries for their research works.

For his part, Dr Magna said the underinvestment in the Agric sector is underscored by the government’s actual budgeting expenditure in the Agric sector which averages just 1 percent of total government expenditure from 2018 to 2021.

Participants were of the view that considering the state of agriculture and the state of food insecurity, key provisions must be made in subsequent budgets to drive agricultural transformation, improve food production, reduce food prices and improve the livelihoods of farmers.

The Center for Agricultural Productivity and Policy Studies hopes to make the National Dialogue, a regular feature on its calendar

Story by:
Farhana Issah (University Relations)