Agric Ministry to meet Trade, National Security Ministries over restriction on exportation of maize, soya bean

The Ministry of Food and Agriculture is set to hold a meeting with the Trades Ministry and the National Security Ministry this week on ways to effectively enforce the restrictions placed on the exportation of two important commodities, soya bean and maize, from the country.

According to the Food and Agriculture Ministry, this forms part of measures to ensure food security and increase local poultry and livestock production.

This follows a directive from the Ministry of Trade and Industry to restrict their export to ensure the availability of the produce in the country.

The Press Secretary to the Food and Agriculture Minister, Issah Alhassan, who spoke about the meeting, said “the Minister is going to convey an inter-ministerial meeting with the Ministries of National Security and Trade and Industry.”

“This meeting will discuss the modalities. The initial plan had captured only soya bean, but there has been the need to add maize to it, and so we are going to discuss the rollout this week and communicate accordingly.”

The Ministry of Trade and Industry has restricted the export of the two commodities to ensure the availability of the products, whose production is subsidized.

Apart from recent data from the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) indicating the increasing cost of foodstuff, there have been concerns about a possible food shortage in Ghana.

The Ministry of Food and Agriculture has however downplayed these claims

source : citinews