A nine-member board of administrators of the National Meals Buffer Inventory Company (NAFCO), was inaugurated in Accra yesterday by Minister of Meals and Agriculture, Mr Eric Opoku, with a name on members to champion nationwide meals safety and guarantee worth stability.
Chaired by Dr Eric Osei-Owusu, the board has been tasked to play a transformative function within the operations of the Buffer Inventory Firm to raised serve the pursuits of each farmers and shoppers.
Talking on the inauguration ceremony in Accra, the Minister underscored the significance of Buffer Inventory in stabilising Ghana’s agricultural market.
“We’re all conscious that in Ghana, agriculture is seasonal. So within the peak season, we usually have numerous meals out there. The worth of meals collapses utterly. It falls so low that our farmers are unable to recoup their funding,” he mentioned.
He urged the Buffer Inventory Company to behave swiftly throughout bumper harvests by buying surplus produce for storage, and releasing them onto the market within the lean season when costs rise, with a purpose to shield each producers and shoppers.
“You may have that twin responsibility of making certain that the farmer who’s the producer of the meals is protected, after which the patron can also be protected,” Mr Opoku mentioned.
He urged the Board to majortain a strategic meals reserve to cope with nationwide emergencies, whereas citing final yr’s dry spell within the northern a part of the nation, as one in all such nationwide emergencies.
Mr Opoku additionally bemoaned the failure by the corporate to entry 20,000-tonnes of cereal allocation from the Financial Neighborhood of West African State (ECOWAS) final yr because of the political instability in Burkina Faso the place the inventory was being held.
He, due to this fact, introduced that the federal government had made a budgetary provision to help Buffer Inventory in constructing emergency meals reserves and referred to as on the Board to discharge its mandate successfully.
For his half, the Chairman of the Board, Osei-Owusu, expressed appreciation to President John Dramani Mahama, the Council of State, and the Minister for the honour achieved them.
Dr Osei-Owusu, a founding Chief Govt Officer (CEO) of NAFCO, mentioned the corporate had a significant function in securing farmers in opposition to post-harvest losses and making certain truthful meals costs.
He acknowledged that NAFCO’s mission aligned with authorities’s Feed Ghana and RESET agenda, which search to modernise agriculture, cut back meals inflation, promote agribusiness and create sustainable jobs.
“With improved infrastructure, elevated funding, and educated manpower, NAFCO is poised to fulfil its function as a nationwide meals reserve and aggregator,” he famous.
He assured the Minister and the general public of the Board’s dedication to ship on its mandate and support Ghana’s broader agricultural transformation.
BY EUGENE AMPIAW
