Use specialised markets to improve fortunes of farmers - Peasant Farmers
Peasant farmers have called on the government to consider creating a farmers’ market at vantage points across the country, where only farmers can sell foodstuffs directly to consumers.
Advertisement
The market mostly comprises special centres equipped with appropriate technology and facilities that make it easier for farm produce to be preserved and retailed to the consuming public.
They are optimistic that the initiative would help increase sales of their farm produce, given that it will help cut off the middlemen.
Currently, the farmers said, the various markets have been monopolised by market queens who now demand that people join their associations before they can sell in such markets.
The Programme Officer of the Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana (PFAG), Mr Charles Nyaaba, told the GRAPHIC BUSINESS in Accra that when the middlemen are cut off, consumers will receive the freshest produce while farmers will make more income to be able to create revenue for the local economy.
He explained that his outfit was aware that the market queens mostly twisted the arms of farmers at the farm gate to sell their produce to them at cheaper prices, but ended up selling them at exorbitant prices in the cities.
“The long fertiliser sack of garden eggs is going for GH¢15 up north but in the market here in Accra, they sell five pieces for GH¢2, and even sell a bag over 100 per cent of the price they offered to the farmers. So in the short to medium term, we can think about a farmers’ market as is happening in Kenya and South Africa and it doesn’t need so much resources to do,” he noted.
Farmers’ market
Typically, rules in farmers’ markets require that farmers sell their produce from their farms directly to the public.
It reflects a region’s agriculture and seasons, keeps money in circulation within the local community and creates local jobs.
Mr Nyaaba said it was important for government to come up with some simple appropriate technology to store farm produce, particularly perishable goods.
“Like the government’s proposed ‘one district, one factory,’ they don’t need to put up huge factories, but they can build small store houses or small machinery that can store produce for farmers during the glut season so that they can sell in the lean season to make profit,” he said.
NAFCO
Mr Nyaaba also mentioned that the National Food Buffer Stock Programme (NAFCO), which targeted mainly cereals, suffered setbacks, including middlemen offering lower prices to farmers and selling to the company at higher prices.
“They didn’t have enough storage facilities and resources to buy from farmers. It was just a name on paper but if you went to the villages, it was not working,” he said. — GB