…Dealers blame cedi depreciation
There is a call by sellers and dealers of agro inputs for a reduction in import duties on agro equipment and machinery.
In a scan of the agro-input (fertilisers, pesticides, weedicides, implements) market ahead of last Friday’s celebrations of the 2017 Farmer’s Day, Business Day gathered from sellers of Agro-inputs that prices keep rising.
A lot of the increment, they say, is due to the Ghana cedi’s weakness in holding its own against the United States dollar.
One of the dealers feeling the pinch is Agrimart, an agro-input dealer at Madina. Its biggest clients are mainly peasant farmers. There are lots of vegetable smallholder farmers that patronize materials from Agrimart, most especially those in Dzorwulu, Pantang, Abokobi, the Motorway, and Atomic Road.
The most common agric input customers buy there is weedicides because every land preparation begins with the use of weedicides.
According to Madam Dora Nketsiah Anokwa, Head of Administration at Agrimart, the exchange rate of the US dollar was seriously affecting the prices of inputs because these inputs are mostly imported into the country; so, obviously the prices will be high.
For instance, if the farmer wants to grow maize and he needs fertilizers, he has to buy it at the price it is.
“So there is nothing like opportunity cost,” she said, indicating that the farmer is often forced to reduce the acreage that he would have done because at the end of the day he would have to make sure he gets the right input that he will require as a farmer.
“At the end of the day, agriculture is such that you cannot do away with these inputs. But just that, maybe, the capacity that the farmer wants; he may not be able to get to that target because of the constraint of cash flow,” Madam Nketsiah Anokwa indicated.
To resolve the challenge, she recommends that access to finance for inputs should be eased for the farmers. “…Because for every farmer that will be able to prepare a program for his crops, he needs inputs. But before the farmer can get access to that inputs, he needs the back-up of having the money to be able to buy the inputs; and the major issue we have is access to this finance. Many of these farmers don’t have what it requires for assessing the financial institutions’ support and government too cannot do that for them.”
So, the private sector has to take care of it for these farmers, she recommended.
The impact of high input cost is not only on the farmers, but also on the sellers and dealers. Some dealers actually sell inputs just to help farmers.
According to Madam Nketsiah Anokwah, inputs are not profitable because some of these inputs they sell, they only add them to the products in order to be able to meet the customers’ needs.
Across town, Mr. David Ofori is Owner of Agri Universe Veterinary Shop at Kaneshie. He decried the rate at which prices of agric inputs keep rising by the day, attributing it to the increase in the dollar rate.
“Things are very expensive now as compared to last year. Also, farmers do not buy agric inputs like before.
“For instance, we supply day-old chicks here, before it gets to X’mas by this time, people would have bought them already by now but the situation is different. The feeding cost is very expensive and people cannot afford to buy them.”
Mr. Ofori added that farmers do not buy fertilizers like they used to because of the one government sells to them.
“That one is cheaper than the one agric shops sell which they buy from private dealers. So ours are more expensive than the one government gives to farmers as part of inputs for the ‘Planting for Food and Jobs’ program.”
For him, though selling agric inputs used to be profitable, the market is now very slow and if you don’t take time, you will end up spending your capital.
“The sale is bad. Every day, I sit here for several hours and nobody will even come to buy anything. Because of this, I’m even thinking of letting one of my two workers go. I don’t have the money to pay him.”
Mr. Ofori reiterated the need to reduce the importation of many agric inputs and rather encourage companies producing locally to help cut cost.
The experience of Mr. John Gino of the Agri Evolution (Evo) at Kaneshie is that agric input is all year round so people buy them anyways.
“The prices of agric inputs always keep rising because of the exchange rate. The inputs are getting more expensive. We don’t import them ourselves but buy from those who import them. And that affects our sales because there is no money to come and buy. The prices are too high. The farmers are also affected because their produces are reduced.
“The sales of cutlasses and hoes have now reduced drastically because people don’t weed anymore. They prefer to use the weedicides. The weedicides go a lot,” he said.
