Rice farmers cultivating their produce in the Dawhenya Irrigation Farms are calling for financial support from stakeholders.
The call from the farmers, according to them is as a result of their dependence on market women (traders) for capital which they lamented is leading to loses in their businesses.
Capital for expansion of the farmlands remains one of the major challenges confronting rice farmers in the area, a situation one of the affected rice farmers, Mr. Abdulai Musah, a rice farmer at Dawhenya in the Shai-Osudoku of the Greater Accra Region is complaining about.
“Our major challenge as rice farmers is capital for expansion and running of our farming activities. We lack capital and the situation is compelling us to fall on the market women for support and this invariably leads to loses for most of us,” Mr. Abdulai Musah bemoaned in an interview with Rite news.
The rice farmer who accused the market women of taking advantage of their predicament to exploit them said they have no choice but to fall on the women for capital to sustain their businesses.
“Most at times, the traders help us with capital in exchange for our yields after harvesting but they mostly end up cheating us by undervaluing our produce and which consequently leads to affected farmers running into total loses,” he complained bitterly.
Rice production in the area is therefore declining due to these financial constraints farmers are facing, Mr. Abdulai Musah lamented further.
The rice farmer says aside the fact that farmers bear the cost of inputs needed for their farming activities, market women dictate the prices for their commodities. The situation he said mostly arises in the face of low or no market for their produce.
Mr. Abdulai Musah is therefore pleading with authorities to put in place good measures to solve the marketing challenges facing them since farming is a difficult activity for market women to be cheating them.
Source: Joyce Bedeley/ritefmonline.org/ jbedeley 9357@gmail.com
