Story By: Elizabeth Frimpong
The Head of Nyemipemi Cassava Processing and Production Group from Pupunya in the Yilo Krobo Assembly in the Eastern Region of Ghana, Mr. Isaac K Takyi has called upon the Government and the authorities to come to their aid of cassava business. This was noted on Tuesday March 29, 2016 on Rite 90.1 FM morning show program “FEED the FUTURE PLATFORM’’
According to him, accessing farm inputs such as weedicides, pesticides, fertilizers and the others are the biggest challenges to cassava industry. Hence they are appealing to the Government to subsidize the prices of the farm inputs for them. He said 1botle of the weedicide is sold at GH₵14.00 so they are beseeching the Government to subsidize it to an affordable price ranging from GH₵ 7.00-8.00.
He further explained that, they cultivate different varieties of the cassavas such as ‘Ankra for pounding fufu, ‘Lagos’ cassava for cassava dough, ‘Tek cassava for processing Gari and WAPP cassava also for Gari. Mr. Isaac however encouraged both the young and old people to engage in the cassava value chain business.
In addition, he said they normally process the cassava into Gari and sell them at the market for GH₵200.00 per bag so he is able to sell 2 bags within a week with the assistant of the wife because the condition for the processing is very tedious and they sometimes get tired since they involve manual process.
Source: ritefmonline.org
