West Akyem Assembly, MP provide farmers with market
The West Akyem Municipal Assembly, with support from the Member of Parliament (MP) for Lower West Akyem, Charles Acheampong, has created a satellite market at Asamankese for farmers to sell their farm produce directly to consumers.
Advertisement
The creation of the market is to save the farmers from exploitation by middlemen who buy the foodstuffs cheaply at the farm gates and sell them at expensive prices at the marketing centres.
The Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) for West Akyem, Seth Oduro-Boadu, announced this at the municipal celebration of the National Farmers Day at Kakoase last Friday.
He said the assembly and the MP had also decided to bear half the cost of all agrochemicals they would supply to farmers in the area from the next farming season.
Mr Oduro-Boadu said the measure is to alleviate the financial burden on farmers, create jobs for the youth and boost food production in the municipality.
Palm seedlings
The MCE said the assembly and the MP supplied more than 60,000 oil palm seedlings free of charge to some farmers for planting this year.
In all, 15 outstanding farmers from the municipality were honoured and presented with assorted items such as fridges, television sets, Wellington boots, knapsack sprayers, wheelbarrows and machetes.
The Chief of Kakoase, Barima Asante Antwi, who was adjudged the overall best municipal farmer, was presented with a certificate, a motorbike and a fridge, among other items.
He thanked the assembly for the honour done him and urged the government to grant soft loans to farmers to motivate them to expand their activities and produce more crops for home consumption and export to increase the country's foreign exchange earnings.