Alan Kyerematen, founder and leader of the Movement for Change, has voiced apprehensions regarding the government’s flagship Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) policy.
He highlighted concerns over the policy’s slow transition from smallholder farming to commercial farming, which he believes impedes its effectiveness in achieving food security goals.
In an interview on the Citi Breakfast show on Citi FM with host Bernard Avle, Kyerematen emphasized that focusing solely on smallholder farming has historically not led to successful food security outcomes for any country.
“When you want to reduce the cost of food generally, it has to be commercial farming. Small-scale farming is good and there is no doubt about that but there is no evidence of any country in the world that has been able to succeed with their efforts at food security by just having small-scale farming.
“Planting for Food and Jobs’ module could have been improved and I feel that the initial emphasis on smallholder farming was understandable because you cannot just jump into commercial farming and there needed to have been a much faster transition to commercial farming. To focus only on smallholder farming, as I keep saying, will not work.”
He suggested that he plans to launch a new initiative called the AgricPacs project, aiming to facilitate easier land acquisition through collaboration with traditional leaders.
This initiative aims to enhance food production efforts.
“The module is so beautiful because it says that the government only needs to provide incentives for mass participation in agriculture and the first thing is for the government to support what we call AgroPacs, and what that means is that the government will work with the traditional authorities to facilitate the acquisition of large tract of land.”
