Senior Lecturer at the University of Cape Coast’s Department of Crop Science, Dr. Frank Ackah, says it is time for Ghana to treat agriculture as seriously as health and education by giving it its own full-service structure, a Ghana Agricultural Service.
Speaking to The High Street Journal, Dr. Ackah explained that agriculture, which provides food for everyone and jobs for millions, has for years been scattered and weakened, leaving it unable to deliver its best for the country.
He noted that agriculture used to be one of the strongest and most respected sectors in Ghana, but today many parts have been taken away from the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA).
“You see the Ministry of Agriculture as a body, but most of its body parts have been removed,” he said. “Cocoa Board is now under the Ministry of Finance, agribusiness has been moved to the Ministry of Trade, and at the district level agriculture is under local government. So the ministry is no longer whole.”
Dr. Ackah said this broken structure makes it difficult to plan, supervise and coordinate agricultural projects, especially in the districts where most farmers live and work. While the health and education sectors have strong service systems that reach down from the national level to the regions and districts, agriculture does not.
Ghana’s agriculture sector is one of the country’s biggest employers, covering crops, livestock, fisheries and agro-processing. It feeds the population and supplies raw materials to industries. Yet, Dr. Ackah said, the very people keeping this system alive, the extension officers and agric staff who support farmers, are among the least paid public workers.
He added that many of these officers work in remote villages, facing risky conditions like exposure to toxic chemicals, heavy machinery, and animal diseases, yet they receive no rural or risk allowances, unlike health workers and teachers.
“Let all farmers go on strike for even a week and see what will happen, whether there will be food,” Dr. Ackah said. “Without food, health workers and teachers cannot survive, so agriculture officers must be treated as essential professionals too.”
He believes that creating a Ghana Agricultural Service would bring back all the split departments under one roof, restore the strength and pride of the sector, and make it easier to plan properly, pay fairly, and boost food production for the whole country.
Dr. Ackah is urging all stakeholders, especially agriculture professionals, to come together and support the push for a bill in Parliament to make this new service a reality.
He said the move is urgently needed to give agriculture the respect and resources it deserves and to secure Ghana’s food future.
