Claim: The Head of Agribusiness at the Food and Agriculture Ministry, Jeremy Agyemang, has claimed that the sector has consistently recorded a growth rate exceeding six per cent since 2017.
Verdict: False. According to data from the Finance Ministry, in 2018 and 2019, growth in the Agriculture sector was less than six per cent.
Full Text
The Head of the Agribusiness Unit at the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Jeremy Agyemang, said that initiatives taken by the government had led the sector to record significant growth.
Speaking at a Roundtable Discussion organised by Mennonite Economic Development Associates, Jeremy Agyemang said that the Agricultural sector, due to programmes such as Planting for Food and Jobs and One District-One Factory, has consistently recorded a growth rate exceeding 6% since 2017.
“Government has always prioritised agriculture as reflected in all national sectoral development, policies, strategies and plans. Targeted government actions combined with the sector’s potential have ensured that its annual growth rate has consistently exceeded the target set at 6% from 2017 to 2021,” he said.
“Since the inception of the programme, the sector growth rate over the past five years averaged 6.3% as compared to the 2.7% in 2016,” Jeremy Agyemang added.
DUBAWA’s attention was drawn to the claim when the story was aired on the television network, JoyNews during their February 22, 2023 edition of ‘The Market Place’. The report can be found between minutes 10:19 to 12:16 of the business segment uploaded on YouTube.
We also found an online publication that captured the claim.
This report will answer two questions:
- Has agricultural growth consistently exceeded 6% since 2017?
- What has been the average growth of the agriculture sector since 2017?
Verification
Data on the growth of the agriculture sector usually features in the annual budget statement presented by the Finance Ministry to Parliament.
In the 2023 Budget Statement (Page 23), we observed that in 2018 and 2019, the Agriculture sector recorded a growth of 4.9% and 4.7%, respectively. Data from the Ghana Statistical Service also confirms these figures as the Agriculture sector’s growth in 2018 and 2019.
Ghana’s Agricultural Sector Profile for 2021, published by the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC), also quotes less than 6% growth for the sector in 2018 and 2019.
“At the national level, agricultural GDP growth rate for 2019 indicates that the sector grew by 4.6% compared to 2018 growth rate of 4.8%,” the GIPC report indicated.
Data from these three sources do not support the claim that the agriculture sector has consistently recorded a growth rate exceeding 6% since 2017.
Below is a tabular representation of Ghana’s agriculture sector growth since 2017.
| Year | Ministry of Finance | Ghana Statistical Service |
| 2017 | 6.2% | 6.2% |
| 2018 | 4.9% | 4.9% |
| 2019 | 4.7% | 4.7% |
| 2020 | 7.3% | 7.3% |
| 2021 | 8.4% | 8.4% |
| 2022 | N/A | N/A |
Agyemang’s claim that the sector averaged a growth rate of 6.3% between 2017 and 2021 was, however, found to be correct.
(6.2+4.9+4.7+7.3+8.4) divided by 5 (2017 to 2021) = 6.3 per cent
Conclusion
According to figures from the Ministry of Finance and the Ghana Statistical Service, it is not true that the sector has consistently recorded an annual growth above 6 per cent between 2017 and 2021.
