By Catherine Ahiador:
The recent shortage of the popular Ghanaian staple food, cassava continues to have its ripple effects in many Ghanaian homes. But the homes are not the only affected. The shortage has taken its toll on many local chop bars where consumers are forced to buy their local diet, fufu at exorbitant costs unlike in the past.
Mr. Moses Tetteh is a maize and cassava farmer at Huhunya in the Yilo Krobo municipality of the Eastern region. He told Krobea Asante during Wednesday’s Akuafo Se Sen on Rite FM that the cause of the cassava shortage was the recent low rainfall which just like other crops, took its toll on cassava production in the country.
He bemoaned that the continuous exposure of the cassava farms to sunshine over a long period of time affected the crops.
Aside the poor rains, Mr. Tetteh also noted that the problem of bush fires was another contributory factor to the shortages, adding that most cassava farmers got their farms destroyed by the bush fires. He was concerned that Ankra, a new cassava variety has become very scarce in the country as a result of the bush fires and the low rainfall levels in the country.
He noted that Ankra, is a type of cassava that is very good for the local fufu dish but its shortage has made fufu consumption quite scarce these days.
Mr. Tetteh was however confident that although farmers were exposed to all these problems, they were not discouraged of the resultant low productivity of their farm produce.
Source: ritefmonline.org
