COTTON farmers in the three northern regions have made an urgent appeal to the government to rescue the industry from collapse by injecting more capital into the sector.
That, they noted, would enable farmers to get access to the necessary farm inputs such as tractors, fertilisers, sprayers and pesticides to cultivate cotton in the north this planting season.
“Three weeks from now the planting season for cotton will be due, yet farmers in northern Ghana do not have the necessary inputs for farming,” they lamented.
The National Secretary of the Cotton Farmers Association of Ghana (CFAG), Mr Nashiru Adam, made the appeal at a press conference in Tamale.
It was aimed at renewing the call on the government to address the numerous challenges facing the industry.
Mr Adam said following the closure of some cotton companies in the past nine years, cotton farmers in the north had been rendered redundant and consequently remained unemployed, although there was enormous potential for employment in that sector.
He stressed that the decision of the CFAG to hold the press conference was borne out of the frustration of its members in their dealings with the government.
“We have written several letters appealing to the government to rescue the cotton industry from collapse and put the cotton farmers back in business but to no avail,” he pointed out.
The secretary also expressed regret that “we can no longer take care of our children in school and some of them have had to drop out”.
“While these sufferings are going on, cotton seeds and lint continue to appreciate in value and there is always a ready market for them. It is estimated that about 70 per cent of lint is exported to the Far East and Europe,” Mr Adam stressed.
He further explained that on the local front, there were companies that could provide a local market for cotton farmers, including Akosombo Textiles Limited, Volta Star Textiles, Bosbel in Tamale and Ghana Nuts Company in Techiman.
According to him, given the inadequate or non-existent resources for many cotton farmers, the government would be of immense help to the industry if it considered extending credit facilities to cotton farmers to strengthen “our financial bases to enable us to cultivate more of the produce to meet industrial demands”.
“We cotton farmers in the three northern regions, having high regard for the government’s promise of helping cotton farmers, can only keep our fingers crossed, hoping that it will go a long way to eradicate poverty in the north,” Mr Adam added.
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