We must curb food wastage
Reports that Ghana wastes 3.2 million metric tonnes of food, equivalent to GH¢762.32 billion annually, must be of great concern not just to farmers but policymakers.
This is because Ghana is seriously food insecure and struggles to feed its citizens and cannot therefore afford to look on while huge quantity of food goes waste.
It is estimated that about 11.7 per cent of the country’s population, made up of 3.6 million people, are projected to be food insecure by 2029 and that the daily food wasted in kitchens and on plates daily from 49 restaurants has the potential to feed 5,000 over three weeks.
At the farm gate, it is a fact that majority of the farmers often watch on painfully as their crops go waste simply because there are no accessible roads to those farming communities, no storage facilities for food items and no value addition to prolong the lifespan of these food items.
According to the report, the food waste comprises 66 per cent of fruits and vegetables, 40 per cent of root crops and 21 per cent of grains.
This is against the backdrop that the national budget for agriculture for the year is GH¢1.5 billion, which means that it will take more than 500 years to deal with the challenge even if we allocate all the budget to deal with food wastage alone.
An environmental chemist and Director of Student Affairs at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Professor Mariam Asantewah Nkansah, who made this known at a lecture, said Ghana’s food waste occurred predominantly during harvesting at the farm gate, on transit to the market and at the market.
Seriously, one of the woes of our farmers has been the nation’s inability to control wastage right from the farms to the dining table.
The Daily Graphic is not surprised that 66 per cent of the fruits and vegetables produced in Ghana go waste, leaving just less than 40 per cent.
This is because even though farmers put in their best in cultivating fruits and vegetables, they are left helpless when there are no cold room systems in place since these are perishable commodities.
Additionally, there is very little value addition along the value chain to such produce and in most cases, during harvest time, there is glut because farmers have to quickly dispose of them to avoid spoilage and wastage.
This definitely demoralises farmers who wish to go into large-scale fruit and vegetable farming as the market is always saturated during the harvest season with its attendant give-away prices.
More so, these are commodities that are perishable and unless they are processed, they cannot last.
The Daily Graphic believes the time has come for policymakers and our leaders to provide the farmers with the needed facilities and logistics.
The government needs to strengthen the value chain by creating an enabling environment for the private sector to fully participate in this area. Policies such as the One District, One Warehouse and One Village, One Dam were fantastic, but unfortunately, they cannot be seen.
Currently, a number of initiatives under the Feed Ghana Programme (FGP), such as the Investment in Infrastructure and Agro-Production Enclaves, and the Vegetable Development Project dubbed “YƐREDUA” are being rolled out.
Surely, Ghana is blessed with fertile land and good weather, among others, conducive to abundant food production.
What is left is the corresponding value chain processing and storage facilities to enable it to realise its goals.
It would be worthwhile to revisit the One District, One Warehouse policy and make it a priority under the current administration.
The government must quickly liaise with those in the agro-processing sector to equip them to go into full-scale processing.
Additionally, we believe that the government must, as a matter of urgency, assess the warehouses that were completed by the previous government, to ensure that they are fit for purpose for the use of farmers.
The government must also encourage the private sector to also invest in the warehousing business as well as cold houses to augment what has been done.
The surprising aspect of the wastage of food is that it is estimated that most of the waste occurs in restaurants and schools, contributing up to 40 per cent of the waste, equivalent to $25 billion worth of food.
For wastage at home and restaurants, we can only appeal to the general public through sensitisation and education to always prepare food enough for the day and always remember that there are others out there who go to bed on an empty stomach.
