Professor Kwame Offei, Dean of the School of Agriculture, University of Ghana, has called for a tax reduction on agriculture inputs to make the sector more viable. He said, beside the inadequate support and incentives for agriculture, the sector is overtaxed in Ghana more than any other country in the sub-Sahara region.
Opening a five-day workshop on the theme: �Reaching the African agrarian poor,� Professor Offei said the current 60 per cent tax on agriculture does not augur well for a country which depends more on food import to feed its people.
�With these circumstances, research and development for technology and best practices in African food production slowed and overall productivity waned,� he stated. To move toward a period of food security, Prof. Offei stressed increased investment in technologies which would enhance production capacities of farmers. �We must examine approaches through which we translate these technologies for local adoption and utilization,� the Dean added. Background literature on the workshop made available to the press said food security and extreme poverty reduction were two of the most important Millennium Development Goals aimed among other things by halving poverty and hunger by 2015.
�But it has become increasingly clear that conventional scientific approaches to food security and poverty reduction hardly meet farmers� priorities in many marginal agricultural areas,� the literature stated, adding, �given the new socio-political and ecological uncertainties, a different, more integrated, rights-based approach is needed to understand and strengthen local capacities for technology development and dissemination.
Professor Offei said it was in that direction that his outfit was organizing the workshop �to engage stakeholders and focus on discovering how the local institutions� would be capable of �sustaining agro technical innovation and dissemination in an attempt to make new technologies ecologically and economically sustainable.�
�I am very positive that the discussions here today will create a convergence platform of ideas and approaches of technology development and adoption for subsequent implementation,� he stated. The workshop organized by the Biotechnology Centre of School of Agriculture is under the auspices of the Technology and Agrarian Development group, Department of Social Sciences, Wageningen University in Holland.
The workshop, being attended by over 100 scientists, agriculturalists, bio-technology experts will discuss measures to make agricultural technology easy and accessible to farmers and also develop a �research development technology.�
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