UGBS Senior Lecturer, Dr. Benjamin Amoah Calls for Private Sector-Led Revitalisation of PFJ and 1D1F Initiatives
Dr. Benjamin Amoah, a Senior Lecturer with the Department of Finance at the University of Ghana Business School (UGBS), has called for the adoption of private sector-led measures to revitalise the Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) and One District-One Factory (1D1F) initiatives. Dr. Amoah made this submission during an exclusive interview with the Ghana News Agency.
According to Dr. Amoah, a strategic collaboration between the government and the private sector would help address inflation, reduce reliance on imported food commodities, and support agro-processing businesses. He explained that the PFJ and 1D1F initiatives, introduced in 2017 to promote food security, economic growth, and industrialisation, have not yielded the desired outcomes. Targeted crops such as rice, tomato, pepper, onion, soybean, sorghum, plantain, yam, cassava, and poultry are still imported in significant quantities from neighbouring countries and overseas. "You cannot go through about seven years of planting for food and jobs, especially on the food side, and then have food inflation always increasing and food becoming expensive on the market," he remarked.
He questioned the effectiveness of government-led initiatives, describing them as "political," and proposed that the private sector should be involved to ensure measurable output and performance. "We can have something similar to PFJ, but we should try to bring in the private sector so that we can easily measure output and performance," he stated.
Dr. Amoah further spoke about the importance of creating partnerships to provide the resources and expertise necessary for the effective implementation of initiatives like PFJ and 1D1F, which could generate jobs across the agricultural value chain. "There should be a huge investment and coordination of Agric sector initiatives like PFJ and 1D1F because we need food security and then at competitive prices," he explained.
According to the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS), 13 of the 15 top-ranked items driving inflation in Ghana between 2018 and 2024 were food items. Experts believe that a revitalised PFJ and 1D1F programme, led by private sector expertise and resources, could transform Ghana’s agricultural value chain and reduce the impact of food inflation.