Peasant Farmers to Engage Govt On Planting for Food and Jobs

An Advocacy Project, aimed at engaging the Government in reviewing its policy framework guiding the implementation of the Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) programme has been launched in Accra.

The 12-month Project is dubbed: “Strengthening Small Holder Voice and Participating in Agricultural Decision Making.”

An initiative of TrustAfrica and Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana (PFAG), the Project seeks to promote evidence-based advocacy to harness small-holder farmers’ decision-making with the agricultural platform in Ghana.

Madam Victoria Adongo, the Programmes Coordinator, PFAG, speaking at the launch, said it also sought to propel the Government’s efforts at delivering on the PFJ to become inclusive, accountable and result oriented, with a broader focus on achieving global and regional agricultural development targets.

She said the Project also would generate credible evidence and establish a baseline that would unveil the level of smallholder farmers’ participation and involvement at the various stages of the programme.

It would also engage with all relevant stakeholders at the National and District levels to ensure that smallholder farmers actively took part in the agriculture budgeting process at both levels.

“It is to also ensure that these farmers not only participate in this programme but their inputs are reflected in the final implementation strategy,” she added.

The Project would also strengthen various farmer groups through training in monitoring techniques and strategies to make them better equipped to deal with local level monitoring and accountability.

Mr Bismark Owusu, the Project Officer, said it would also build and develop tracking mechanism to monitor the programme implementation strategy and measure outcomes.

He expressed the hope that PFAG would use the Project to continually call for increased investment to the agricultural sector with significant benefits to smallholder farmers, who constituted the majority of the sector value chain actors.

He said the Project would focus on monitoring two out of the five strategic pillars of the PFJ programme, which were the provision of extension services and marketing expansion.

The key activities that would be undertaken in the course of the Project include zonal workshops to train farmer groups on the PEF implementation and tracking, field trip to the three selected districts to monitor the programme and development of monitoring and evaluation toolkit.

Mr Charles Kwowe Nyaaba, the Programmes Officer of PFAG, told the GNA that the impression from the farmers was that the programme was good but there needed to be a broader consultation to get the views from all stakeholders.

Source: GNA