Michael Boateng Sunyani
22 August 2008
The Brong-Ahafo Regional Senior Programme Officer, for Agriculture and Food Security of Action Aid Ghana, James Kusi Boamah, has noted that even though successes have been chalked in the production of local staples in the region, due to the adoption of improved farming technology, there had not been a corresponding increase in the incomes of farmers.
Speaking at a day's forum on Agriculture and Food Security for farmers and other stakeholders in Sunyani, organized by the Centre for Sustainable Development (CSD), in collaboration with the Brong-Ahafo Region Development Programme (BARDP) of Action Aid, Mr. Boamah attributed the situation, mainly, to marketing constraints encountered by the farmers.
He said because of poverty, some farmers are compelled to sell substantial portions of their farm produce immediately after harvest, when prices are very low, to meet family obligations.
According to him, such a practice was a threat to efforts at raising the incomes of the farmers.
Mr. Boamah further stated that that phenomenon, would not adequately address the issue of poverty alleviation and food security, among the rural people in the region.
He indicated that factors such as selling the farm produce in its raw form, hampered market access to agriculture production. Mr. Boamah noted that post-harvest handling techniques for farmers, poorly developed market infrastructure, inadequate storage facilities in the rural communities, inadequate access roads from the producing to the market centres, and preference for imported goods as against local ones, were some of the local factors that hampered market access to agriculture production.
On the international factors, he said some trade agreements had created limited market access to the external market by local exporters, adding that farmers in developing countries, including Ghana, cannot compete favourably with counterparts in the developed countries, because the farmers in the developed countries, produced at a lower cost, due to subsidies given them by their countries.
Mr. Boamah stated that globalisation had brought in its wake, strict competition among nations, with the result that countries with weak economies were being forced out of the world market.
He said it was important that countries take steps to safeguard their local market from cheap imported goods, which eventually stifled local food production, and prevented the establishment of local industries.
"Developing countries like Ghana should come up with trade policies that regulate the influx of foreign manufactured goods, because our farmers face strict competition from cheap imports from developed countries, which has limited the expansion of our local industry," he stressed.
Mr. Boamah suggested that to increase access to the market for local farmers, government should support the private sector set up small scale industries, to add value to the raw materials to attract higher prices, provide storage facilities, and encourage farmers to diversify their agriculture base, to reduce their dependency on only one item.
He noted that exploitation by the so-called 'market queens' in the cities, who decide how much to pay for a quantity of farm produce, was a great disincentive to sustainable agriculture.
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