THE Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) has held a two-day training session for 55 selected agricultural stakeholders in the Volta Region on Market Access, Standards and Good Agricultural Practice (GAP). The training, which was organized to curb the rising trend of post-harvest losses, involved mostly women and consisted of farmers, rice millers, agro-processors, snail growers and meat processors.
Market platform
It also sought to establish a market linkage platform to offer prompt information on the availability of farm produce and processed farm stuff, as well as the locations of the opening of the farm, among the farmers and agro-processors to ensure ready market for them.
The Regional Director go Food and Agriculture, Dr William Dzamefe, said at the opening of the training, that the platform would focus principally on the areas of rice, maize, cassava and vegetables production, to identify their zones of supply and demand, to facilitate the marketing of the produce.
He said that the training was highly vital for tackling the menace of post-harvest losses and would, therefore, be sustained.
It emerged that massive harvests of rice produced locally in the various districts had been left to rot on the farms due to the lack of ready market for the produce.
According to the participants, uncompassionate buyers were now trooping to the farms to haul the harvests away at ‘next-to-nothing’ prices. It is the buyers who dictate the price of the rice, they further revealed.
No ready market
Similarly, honey producers, cassava and gari processors among the participants also said that they were unable to sell their products readily, a situation which was casting dark clouds over their industry with large post-harvest losses.
Some of the rice farmers called for access roads to their farms to make it easier for buyers to come over to the farms to purchase the produce, while others requested standard mills to process their rice.
With regard to access to the rice farms, Dr Dzamefe announced that MOFA had taken delivery of a large shipment of tricycles, and was set to distribute them among farmers.