Farmers at Gizaa Gundaa in the Kumbungu District of the Northern Region have called on the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) to institute measures that will regulate trading of farm produce in the northern region. According to the farmers, traders on agriculture value chain are capitalizing on unregulated market to cheat farmers, worsening their poverty situation.
The farmers want the government to also ensure that all traders buying farm produce are registered with registrar general department. The registration, the farmers noted will enable them trace traders who cheat them and even sometimes abscond with their goods without paying.
The Kumbungu district, the farmers said is one of the districts that produce large quantity of vegetables and other cereals but farmers’ income is still low due to the unregulated market.
The farmers were sharing their views on the importance of weighing scale during a field visit by Zaa Radio partnership with Farm Radio International (FRI) under the Standard Weight and Measure (SWAM-2) project.
The implementation team were at Gizaa Gundaa to engage farmers on the relevance of SWAM-2 and also sought their opinions on their relationships of traders in the agriculture value chain.
SWAM-2 project focuses on the importance of Standard Weight and Measure and how it affects the right quality and quantity of crops such as soyabean, cowpea, millet, maize and rice of the farmers. The farmers explained that trader’s continuous determination of prices for them is the reason they are still struggling after farming for several decades.
The farmers in an interaction with the project team applauded FRI and its partners for taking up their concerns and expressed their readiness to adopt the weighing before, during and after each crop season.
The farmers admitted that their indifferent, lack of unity and different economic conditions may have led to the traders capitalizing on the weakness and exploiting them but vow to unit for common good.
Speaking to Zaa News, a subchief of Gbulung, Sobogu Naa John Mahama Yabdoo believes that the only way to address the problem is through proper registration of both farmers and traders who buy their farm produce.
Chief John MahamaSobogu Naa who is also the Presiding Member at the Kumbungu district assembly stated that it’s not only farmers who have been shortchanged but the assembly is also losing a lot of revenue because they cannot track activities of any traders transacting business in the district.
According to the chief, anybody comes to the district claiming to be a trader, decide price for the crop he/she is buying and the farmer has no option but to sell. He corroborated with other farmers concerns that there is disunity among farmers and urged them to come together and fight for their welfare.
