Business Analyst - August 9

Tuesday, August 9, 2022 PAGE 11
Ensuring food security demands
change in fundamentals of
production – Experts
tHE Director of the Institute
for Statistical, Social and
Economic research (ISSEr)
at the university of Ghana,
Prof. Peter Quartey, has said
that with food being one major driver
of inflation, pragmatic measures must
be adopted to ensure its security and
prevent any imminent crisis.
He suggested that it is crucial for
the agriculture sector to take advantage
of irrigation to allow for all-year-round
farming which would ensure that there
is more to meet the country’s demand.
Prof. Quartey added that
government must increase investment
in domestic food production and
employ measures to make available
cheaper credit for large-scale
commercial farmers who will, in turn,
pull along the small-scale farmers to
increase production.
“I believe we have not changed the
fundamentals of food production in
this country. We provide fertilisers and
even now, the rate at which fertilisers
are supplied to farmers has reduced
because the suppliers have not been
paid.
We only farm, sometimes, just four
and five times a year because we rely on
rainfed agriculture. We are blessed with
a lot of rivers so we need to invest in
irrigation – irrigation is key. Also, we
have to invest in the value chain as a
whole.
Internally, we know it is food
inflation that is the highest, as well as
imported inflation. With food inflation,
if we can enhance food production, we
will be able to reduce the effect of
inflation. once you address food
security issues, the country will
minimise its reliance on imported food
items,” he said in an interview with the
B&Ft.
Government programmes
demand swift inputs
For the Executive Director at
Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana,
Dr. Charles nyaaba, changing the
fundamentals of production includes
government following its own
agricultural policies with investment
plans, swift inputs, and committing
resources.
He argued that a reason why
agricultural policies, such as the
Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ), seem
to be struggling is that along the line,
government failed to put in money.
“If you come out with a policy and
you do not commit resources, how will
it work? that is where we find ourselves
with the Planting for Food and Jobs…
Along the line, though the policy is
ongoing, government failed to put in
money. We have gotten it wrong with
how we are going about it,” he said.
Predicted food crisis in 2023
recently, some agricultural sector
groupings have warned of a looming
food crisis in 2023, hence, urging
government to increase investment in
domestic food production to avert the
problem.
According to them, the increasing
cost of production would have a
detrimental influence on the number
of farmers who would plant for the
upcoming season, which would then
have an impact on market output.
the group told Daily Graphic that
the cost of cultivating an acre of maize
and legumes had risen from GH¢1,581
in 2020 to GH¢4,681 in 2022.
the groupings include the General
Agricultural Workers union (GAWu),
the Peasant Farmers Association of
Ghana (PFAG), the Ghana national
Association of Poultry Farmers
(GnAPF), and the Chamber of
Agribusiness, Ghana (CAG).
Quality and Operational Excellence: Thinking
typologies for solving organisational problems [7]
• Continued from Page 10
businesses.”
Making a Strong Case for
Parallel Thinking
Most of the major problems
in the world today persist
precisely because we have such
an excellent method of problemsolving.
this statement is not
intended to be sarcastic. We do
have an excellent method of
problem-solving. It is so good,
however, that we have come to
believe that it will solve all
problems. So, we have not
bothered to develop any other
method. the good is often the
enemy of the best. If something
is very good then we stop there
and cloak ourselves in
complacency.
What is this excellent,
traditional, method of problemsolv
ing? It is yet another
example of the basic belief that
if you `remove the bad things’
you will be left with the good
things. So, the general method is
that you analyse the problem,
identify the cause and then
proceed to remove the cause. the
cause of the problem is removed
so the problem is solved. It
works! Well, de Bono argues that
this general method is simple
and it works well, when it works.
But there are some problems
where you cannot find the cause.
there are other problems where
there are so many causes that
you cannot remove all of them.
then there are problems where
you can find the cause, but you
cannot remove it. What do we do
in such cases?
By adopting a parallel
thinking stance, while
acknowledging the excellence of
the general method of solving a
problem by identifying and
removing the cause, we also
need to do something about
those instances where the
method simply does not work.
Are these insoluble problems?
Possibly, but we ought at least to
try some other methods.
Conclusion: Practising
Parallel Thinking
now, why don’t you give this
wonderful methodology a try
within your teams
Select a topic for discussion
(e.g. an idea a team came up
with).
Have someone lead the
meeting (blue hat).
Explain each hat in turn and
give the group some time to
discuss the subject from that
particular hat’s point of view.
Encourage them to record
the conversation on a board so
that you can expand on it later.