Agric Minister Announces ‘One District, One Warehouse’ program

The Akufo-Addo government has launched a new grandiloquent promise to establish a food storage warehouse in every district under a catch-phrase, “one district. One warehouse.”

Agric Minister, Akoto Afriyie, who made the announcement today said that Government is pursuing the program in attempt to ensure food security for the country.

According to him, conservative estimates are that Ghana may need up to 200,000 metric tones of warehouse capacity to achieve food security.

“…we will need to build more warehouses, because 80 is not enough, you have 80,000 to 34,000, not even 130. in my reckoning we will need at least 200,000 metric tonne warehouse capacity.

“We recognize the challenges in the marketing in terms of the infrastructure, in terms of financing, and so on to make this happen,” the Minister, whose handling of an army worm invasion last year had led to open calls for his resignation.

The “1d, 1w” promise is coming after the Akufo-Addo Government had similarly promised to implement other district-focused programs under catchy slogans that have not been exactly well implemented.

Among others, ‘one district, one factory’ and ‘one village, one dam’ largely remain on paper, as implementation on the ground turn out very underwhelming. A couple of dugouts that the administration had touted as dams in villages for instance, have mostly dried up.

However, Dr. Afriyie Akoto told journalists this morning during a briefing on Covid-19 that the Government is implementing ‘1d, 1w.’

Meanwhile, he also claimed that the country has food in abundance and that food prices have been plummeting through the covid-19 pandemic, claims that some journalists at the press conference strongly disputed.

“So the hike in food prices, I think that my friend at Joy News will recognize that only four years ago, a bunch of plantain in Accra, you have to spend Ghc40. now Ghc3, Ghc4, Ghc5, you can get a bunch of plantain. It shows you clearly that we have come and reduced prices of food even in the major city like Accra where because of the special rationing and prices in the market, most households which could not afford one meal a day, can now afford three meals a day, because food is so cheap and we continue to ensure that planting for food and jobs will deliver even more to areas of consumption to make life very easy for families.”

The claim is contrary to prevailing public sentiments that prices of food have sky-rocketed. In Ghana today, a popular sad joke is that gari, a rather low class staple that has traditionally been sold cheap, is now selling at ‘cocaine prices.’

An olonka of gari which used to sell for Ghc8 before the coronavirus outbreak is now selling for Ghc25. a bulb of garlic that used to sell for 50 pesewas is now selling for Ghc2.

The price hikes are even worst for fish, with a medium sized smoked salmon which used to sell for between Ghc3 and Ghc4 now going for between Ghc8 and Ghc10.