CREATE MORE MARKETS FOR FARM PRODUCE (PAGE 25, JAN 8, 2010)

THE Minister of Food and Agriculture, Mr Kwesi Ahwoi, has said the availability of market for farm produce is crucial for farmers to generate the much needed financial resources to overcome poverty.
He, therefore, asked stakeholders in the agricultural sector to concentrate more on creating markets for farm produce.
Addressing the Northern Rural Growth Programme (NRGP) Value Chain Practitioners Forum in Tamale, Mr Ahwoi said “past efforts emphasised increasing productivity and that often resulted in lowering prices and the farmer is often made worse off”.
Among other objectives, the forum was aimed at creating a platform for stakeholders in the NRGP to interact and share experiences to adopt common programmes and strategies.
Mr Ahwoi said “we should only increase the productivity of commodities that are in high demand and for which the markets have already been identified”.
To create more market access, Mr Ahwoi underscored the need for farmers to consider the comparative advantages of their agricultural produce to increase their competitiveness on the market.
“The youth must be encouraged to take up agriculture as a business. To do that, we the youth must make agriculture attractive in terms of mechanisation and sourcing of markets to make agri-business profitable,” he stated.
Mr Ahwoi stated that the sector ministry was bringing in 1,000 more tractors to continue the programme of the Agriculture Mechanisation Service Centres.
He indicated that already eight combine harvesters had arrived in the Northern and Upper East regions to harvest rice, which saw a boost this cropping season.
“I have directed the NRGP to expedite the rehabilitation of strategic warehouses under the infrastructure component for the storage of the bumper cereal harvest, especially produce from the block farms sponsored by the ministry for the youth,” he stressed.
The minister further stated that the Value Chain Approach was the current focus of his outfit and one of the central pillars of the current Food and Agricultural Sector Development Policy (FASDEP).
“To date, the ministry, with technical assistance from the German Development Co-operation (GTZ) under the Market Oriented Agricultural Programme (MOAP) are institutionalising the Value Chain Approach in the ministry by piloting the application of the approach to some commodities,” he pointed out.
The Northern Regional Director of Food and Agriculture, Mr Sylvester Adongo, intimated that the NRGP would succeed if stakeholders were committed to its implementation process.