It has become increasingly common to hear our farmers complaining about their inability to sell their produce at reasonable prices in the country.
Farmers in Ghana sell their produce all at once and at any price because they do not have financial capacity to store them, and this gives merchants more control over prices.
“We at Ghana Agricultural & Rural Development Journalists Association (GARDJA) are worried about the future of agriculture which is considered to be the backbone of Ghana’s economy at this momentous time when the youth of this nation keeps on running away from farming and its ancillary works.
“The complaints of farmers about low prices for their produce give us more headaches and that government needs to take some practical measures to shore up Ghana’s ailing agricultural production. Today, farmers are hoping that governmental efforts will be made for weighing scales to be applied in determining the prices of foodstuffs at the market, and we are adding our voices to the call.
“Members of GARDJA believe that such mechanism, if put in place, will ensure farmers receive fair prices to make farming attractive to young people in the country, since the current farmers are aging.
“This will invariably improve personal livelihoods in the rural communities and also increase food production for the country.
“There is an overarching concern in recent times that young people are shunning agriculture as they see farming as a labour-intensive and low profit-making venture.
“It is government’s responsibility to make things turn around, and this could be done through offering incentives such as subsidising agricultural inputs such as pesticides, while securing internal and external markets for their produce since it has come to our knowledge that government is not offering the required support in that direction.”
These remarks were made by the President of the Ghana Agricultural and Rural Development Journalists Association (GARDJA), Richmond Frimpong, and the leadership of the association in Kumasi on 29th June, 2017.
Source: ClassFMonline
