The Minister of Food and Agriculture, Bryan Acheampong, has expressed optimism that there will be no famine despite the current drought in Northern Ghana.
Northern Ghana is grappling with a severe drought that has raised widespread concerns about food security and the livelihood of thousands of farmers.
The region has experienced no rainfall for over two months, resulting in stunted crop growth and leaving farmers with little hope for a successful harvest.
However, in an interview with Umaru Sanda Amadu on Face to Face on Channel One TV, Bryan Acheampong dismissed fears of a possible food shortage, assuring that such an occurrence will not happen in the country.
“I don’t think there will be a 1982 [1983] event, I don’t think that there will be famine, I don’t think that there will be food shortages, none of that.
“I think maybe at the time that it happened, we didn’t have the predictive tools or the intelligence to able to deal with the situation. Some of which at the time were compounded by drought and fires which ravaged almost the whole country. We don’t have that situation on our hands now and we’re not going to get there,” Bryan Acheampong said.
He assured that Ghana will not experience a food shortage, emphasizing the measures the government has implemented to prevent potential food scarcity in the country.
“All the things that we are talking about, except for the damage to the crops that has happened now, in terms of the impact on the markets will be more of the end of September and October, and we are putting in steps now to deal with it,” he assured.
According to him, farmers still have a stock of grains to fall back on, emphasizing the need for a robust system and support to be in place to mitigate any potential food-related eventualities.
“By now even if the crops were doing well, they wouldn’t have harvested it. So, with all the stock of grains the farmers were living on, they still had something to live on the unit the next harvest in September. And so we are saying that we need to have all the systems and support in place in the country by the 20th to the end of September, to take us through. So that is what we’re planning against.
“And that is what gives me the confidence that we’re not going to be in a 1982, 1983 kind of situation or a famine. Nobody has thought about that in this Ministry, we’re not going there.”
Background
The 1983 famine in Ghana was a severe crisis caused by a combination of prolonged drought and widespread bushfires.
The drought, which began in 1981, led to extremely low rainfall levels, significantly affecting agricultural production.
By 1983, the situation worsened with extensive bushfires destroying up to 35% of the country’s food production.
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