International Diplomatic Consultant, Farouk Al-Wahab says the latter part of the Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) policy has simply been a boost for the country’s crop production and a source of temporary jobs.

He shared that while lots of food has been harvested to feed Ghanaians over the period, the policy has not created a single permanent job.

“The Planting for Food and Jobs policy is a nice concept but no jobs have been created. We planted for food, ate and threw the surplus away. That is what we did. The economic budget failed to even tell us the jobs that were created under the policy”.

He proceeded to dare the Ministry of Agriculture to prove their claims of the job opportunities the PFJ had created for the youth. “The Ministry should tell us which University graduate has started her or his farm, employed others and exported their farm produce”, he demanded.

The career diplomat made this known in an interview with Happy98.9FM’s Don Kwabena Prah on the ‘Epa Hoa Daben’ political talk show.

Suggesting measures to make the policy realistic, he said, “the first step the government should have taken before rolling out the PFJ policy was to connect the Agriculture and Trade ministries. The Trade minister will have to hold Ghana’s basket and go to the international market, seeking a market for these food crops and products but did we do that?” he asked.

According to the diplomatic consultant, if this had been done from the very beginning, real jobs would have been created for the Ghanaian populace, foreign exchange earned “and there would have been no introduction of something like the COVID-19 tax”.

With the will and political power, a well spelt out economic direction and the attachment of Trade attaches in Ghanaian missions globally, “we can hunt for sales opportunities for our farm produce to make the PFJ policy a reality”, he advised.

Planting for Food and Jobs is a flagship agricultural campaign of the Government, with five (5) implementation modules. The first module PFJ (Crops) aims to promote food security and immediate availability of selected food crops on the market and also provide jobs. This module was officially launched by H. E. President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo at Goaso on April 19, 2017 in the then Brong Ahafo Region.