While many farmers continue to cry over the poor rainfall last season which left many of their crops badly dehydrated, Mr. Emmanuel Duah, Eastern Regional best farmer for 2015 has told Rite FM that the dry season wasn’t their only headache. According to him, though they experienced no rainfall at a point in time, the rains fell so heavily during the middle of the year which left most of their crops rotten.
He said worst affected crops included maize, cassava and yam.
Mr. Duah was also regretful of the low rainfall pattern which devastated a lot of farmers, stressing that if there is no rainfall they find it difficult to produce their products unless they employ irrigation farming which comes very expensive to poor farmers.
He also voiced his concern regarding access of loans by farmers. According to Mr. Duah farmers find it difficult to get loans from the various banks because if a farmer takes a loan for the farming, there is the risk of a bad farming season which results in their inability to pay the loans to the various banks. He said this and the fact that the government only pays attention to cocoa farming has come as a major challenging facing them.
Mr. Duah further added that marketing their product is another challenge facing them because there is no ware-house for their products to be patronized in bulk for storage in the warehouses. Their only hope now is to expect a better 2016 farming year.
Source: ritefmonline.org
