Editorial of the Daily Searchlight of Monday, 24th October 2022
We Should Teach Our Farmers about Basic Preservation Methods
The investments of farmers at Mmofra, a cocoa-growing community in the Amenfi West District of the Western Region are going to waste due to the deplorable, unmotorable nature of the roads connecting the place to the nearest market center.
The situation has made it impossible for farmers to transport their cocoa and other farm produce to Mumuni Camp, the closest market center, Mr. Joseph Owusu, an opinion leader, and the cocoa farmer told the Ghana News Agency (GNA).
Speaking in an interview at Mmofra, Mr. Owusu said “the cocoa-buying companies have stopped coming to the community to purchase our cocoa produce because of the bad nature of the road”.
Though the community is one of the highest producers of cocoa in the region, “cocoa buying has stopped because the buyers cannot come here”, he said.
According to him, traders, especially foodstuff dealers who managed to come to the place with hired cargo trucks took advantage of “our inability to convey our products to the market and therefore offer prices below the realistic market value to their advantage”.
It stands to reason that every producer of an item who benefits from its sales, ensures that it creates the necessary channels of transportation, such as roads.
The Daily Searchlight believes that it is a tragedy that a community such as this would have to resort to the press to have such urgent needs catered for.
We believe that the district assembly, the Ministry of Agriculture, and COCOBOD all have a duty to take an interest in this matter to find a workable solution for the people of this community,
In the meantime, we believe that the government should work assiduously to equip farmers with basic preservation skills so that they are not forced to sell their produce under pressure.
We believe that this is one way of giving farmers a level of security and independence so that they are not forced to sell their produce at rock-bottom prices.
(This article was first published in the column EDITORIAL of the Daily Searchlight on Monday, 24th October 2022. The Daily Searchlight appears on the newsstands of Ghana every working day and PDF versions are available for sale online twenty-four hours a day all day throughout the world on www.ghananewsstand.com).
