The General Agriculture Workers Union (GAWU) of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) has urged the government to draw up policies that would link agricultural productivity to industry to ensure food security.
The GAWU noted that although there is an abundance of food at certain periods in the year, the produce soon become scarce in the lean season because there is no effective linkage between agriculture and industry to process and store the surpluses.
Mr. Edward Kareweh, Deputy General Secretary of GAWU, made the appeal at a seminar on the "Right to food and food security in Ghana," organised for some media practitioners in the Northern Region, on Tuesday.
He said the abundance of food on the market did not necessarily mean food security but its availability, in the right quantities, at the right time, in the right varieties, and its suitability to the cultural taste of the people, is security.
Mr. Kareweh said the issue of food insecurity in the country had among other things been bridled with a bad policy regime of over-reliance on cash crop production, especially cocoa, the removal of subsidies and agricultural support services and unbridled trade liberalization.
Other factors, he said, included poor distribution network, poor credit financing in the agriculture sector and high cost of agriculture inputs.
The Deputy-General Secretary of GAWU said that if the country was to attain food security, measures should be taken to curb import surges, restore agric support services, including tractor hiring services for vulnerable groups, reduce cost of agricultural inputs, strengthening and making use of agricultural research and improving market distribution networks.
Mr. Dajiah Iddrisu, a facilitator at the seminar and a law lecturer at the Tamale Polytechnic, called for appropriate institutional mechanisms to be devised to secure a representative process towards the formulation of a strategy, drawing on available domestic expertise relevant to food and nutrition.
He said the strategy should set out the responsibilities and the time-frame for the implementation of the necessary measures.
The strategy should also address critical issues and measures in regard to all aspects of the food system, including the production, processing, distribution, marketing and consumption of safe food with parallel measures to the fields of health, education, employment and social security.