GOVT DECEIVES RICE FARMERS IN NORTHERN GHANA

Rice growers in the Northern Region of Ghana who have in stock thousands of tones of rice in designated warehouses say they have been deceived by government in believing that money had been released to purchase all the rice they harvested after the 2009 farming season.

The hue and cry of the farmers is coming at the back of recent announcement by Chief Executive Officer of the National Food Buffer Stock Company (NAFCO), Mr Eric Osei Owusu that government had released an amount of Gh¢15 million to buy paddy rice from farmers in the three Northern Regions.

In June this year, 5,009 farmers in the region and their counterparts in the Upper West and Upper East Regions who cultivated various cereal crops most especially rice made clarion calls to government to honour a promise it made to them in 2009 to buy their rice after harvesting.

When savannahnews spoke with some of them in June, they feigned interest to be engaged again in this year’s cropping season simply because they had no guarantee that what they had in stock would be bought. Even farmers, who could not participate last year in the farming under the pilot programme of government’s Block Farming Project and planned to take part this year, became discouraged due to the lack of market for previous farmers.

An estimated 89, 212.5 bags of rice from 3,965 hectares were harvested during the 2009 farming season in the Northern Region alone. Before harvesting the rice, government promised to buy a bag of rice each for GH¢27.00.

However, realizing that the farmers were not ready to go into farming this year, government through NAFCO came out with an announcement a week later that, it was going to buy all the stock of rice and therefore, farmers should not give up.

The farmers who quickly heaved a sigh of relief and lauded government’s timely intervention are now cursing their stars. They told this blogger during a recent fact finding mission that their warehouses were still filled up with the rice and not even a single bag of rice had been bought.

This blogger gathered that the company engaged the services of local agents who buy the rice from farmers in the hinterlands at GH¢27.00 and in turn sell to NAFCO at GH¢ 35.00.

Alhaji Yakubu Ayana, a principal agent who had been contracted by NAFCO to purchase the rice, like other farmers is asking government to as a matter of urgency come and buy the rice and supply them to the schools, hospitals and security agencies which it said it was going to supply with food.

The government’s Block Farming Project initiated in 2009 was aimed at improving agriculture and farming as an innovative business that could reduce the unemployment situation in the country if people especially the youth get interested in farming.