Business News of Friday, 3 February 2023

Source: classfmonline.com

Support local farmers for Ghana to be self-sufficient - Akpaloo

Mr Akpaloo stressed that a Liberal Party government will make the country self-sufficient Mr Akpaloo stressed that a Liberal Party government will make the country self-sufficient

The Founder of the Liberal Party, Percival Kofi Akpaloo has said, if his party gets the nod to steer the affairs of government in this country, it will run a self-sufficient government.

Speaking in an interview with Nana Otu Darko on CTV’s Dwabr3 Mu, Thursday, 2 February 2023, the Liberal Party founder, stressed the importance of running a self-sufficient government.

According to Mr Akpaloo, “three things are required for the country to be self-sufficient,” and government must make a conscious effort to support local agriculture to halt the importation of basic products consumed in the country.

The Liberal Party founder said: “We must intentionally allocate funds to support local farmers, with things that we import into the country.

“We must stop the importation of poultry and support our poultry industry, farmers with huge amounts. How much chicken do we consume as a country, then we allocate money, invest to the farmers to produce.”

He noted that, as a country, once we are able to project how much needs to be produced for consumption, applying the economies of scale, will make the cost of production cheaper.

“If let’s say we need 100,000 Metric tonnes per annum, we should be able to produce 400,000 metric tonnes per annum. There’s something known as Economies of Scale, in Economics when you’re producing on a large scale, it allows Cost per Unit to be cheaper.

“If we’re able to help the farmers produce the poultry needed, it as a country, it will reduce cost of production per bird, it will make cost of production per bird cheaper. So there would be no need to import chicken from outside.”

Mr Akpaloo noted that contrary to claims that it will make importers of such products lose their source of livelihood, it would not.

“For those saying that, those who deal in the importation of such products will lose their source of livelihood. No they will now buy from the poultry farmers, and then bring it to the market. So the money they change into dollars to import etc, will stop.”

“The same thing applies to rice. We consume a lot of rice, but we import the bulk of it so why don’t we support the local farmers. We can have a perfume rice factory, so after harvesting, we process it into perfume rice, Ghanaians love perfume rice,” he explained.

He stressed that a Liberal Party government will make the country self-sufficient and even extend it to other West African countries.

“In that same way you need to make room so that when you produce on a large scale, you can store them, so you need a storage facility. So you have to make a deliberate and conscious effort to do this. You don’t need to travel outside to get money to do it, you should be able to find money from Ghana here to do”

“Yes we will do it and even more. We’ll do it so we can export to neighbouring West African countries, my target is not the Western world but the West African countries,” Mr Akpaloo stated.