Political support for agricultural development is low – Engineer
The lukewarm attitude to agricultural development by successive governments is to blame for the near stagnant growth of the sector, Dr Emmanuel Bobobee, an Agricultural Engineer, has said.
“Most of our leaders in their election campaign promises come out with noble ideas as to how they intend to revolutionize the sector but do virtually little to push for the realization of their objectives when given the mandate.”
Dr Bobobee, Senior Lecturer at the Agricultural Engineering Department, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), speaking to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Kumasi, observed that no sector of the economy had over the years demonstrated such comparably high impact and potential to create wealth, reduce hunger and poverty than agriculture.
It employs about 60 per cent of the work force.
He said it was therefore pertinent for the government to marshal sufficient budgetary support and resources to sustain its growth through the building of institutional capacity and the adoption of appropriate technologies and innovations.
He suggested that research work that leads to the introduction of high-yielding crop variety, product quality, nutrients content and environmentally-friendly agricultural practices should be given priority. This must be underpinned by strong public-private partnership.
Dr Bobobee noted that the agricultural research institutions were not achieving significant break-through by way of developing modern tractors and combined –harvesters, as well as more seed varieties due to limited funding and the lack of motivation for the research scientist.
“Most of our research work particularly in food production that could have reduced hunger to the barest minimum had been either left on the shelves or received less attention in terms of commercialization.”
He said agriculture would have to play a lead role if Ghana was to achieve the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halving poverty by the year 2015.
Dr Bobobee said the Engineering Department was vigorously supporting the transformation of agriculture and cited its development of portable table-top motorized maize sheller and rice thresher to reduce post-harvest losses.
Members of the department have also developed a groundnut cracker for shelling of groundnuts, sunflower and castor seed.
Dr Bobobee said lately, the Department has added a tractor-operated cassava harvesting implement which works best during the dry season and suitable for large scale industrial cassava processing.
Source: GNA