ASHANTI CHIEFS WANT MORE WAREHOUSES TO AVERT HEAVY LOSSES

Traditional leaders in the Ashanti region are urging government to, as a matter of urgency, speed up the construction of a warehouse in each district as promised so as to avert a possible major post-harvest losses in food stuffs next year. 

At separate interactions with the Minister for Food and Agric, Dr. Owusu Afriyie, the chiefs and their elders said, though they are happy that there are signs of food glut, the lack of storage facilities for the farmers to keep the excess ahead of the lean season is becoming.

 The Minister for Food and Agric, Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto, accompanied by some of the Directors at the Agric Ministry, was undertaking an official visit to the Ashanti region for the first time since assuming duty nearly two years ago. He started off at the PEE Farms near Ejura owned by a former MP for the area, Mr. Mohammed Pangabu. The 500 acrea Abontem and Obaatampa maize farm is the being cultivated mainly for certified seed maize for farmers under the Planting for Food and Jobs initiative next season. Mr. Pangabu, who is cultivating the seed maize for the second year, explained what needs to be done to improve the outcome of the initiative in the ensuing years.

The Minister inspected also the present state of the storage at the State Farms which, he was told, is presently operating at 20 per cent of its maximum capacity of 10 thousand metric tons due to years of near neglect. At the time of the visit, the facility was holding five thousand mini bags of maize harvested from the National Service Scheme farms under the planting for food and jobs. 

The Minister visited also a new warehouse being put up by the World Food Programme which will also be used as a training facility for farmers in the municipality. At the State Sheep Breeding Station at Bonyon near Ejura, the Minister was informed that there were only two thousand of ram and ewe instead of the maximum of five thousand that could earn the Station about 300 million Ghana Cedis per annum. 

At the Ejura College of Agric, the students appealed to government to subsidize their school fees to ease the cost burden on their parents. The Ashanti Regional Minister, Mr. Simon Osei Mensah, advised the students to learn hard to take advantage of the opportunities being created in Agric Extension by government. The Minister for Food and Agric, Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto, disclosed that government is recruiting two thousand 700 new Agric Extension Agents this year while providing three thousand motorbikes to such officials to reach out to farmers in rural communities.

 At the Asante Mampong palace, the Minister told the Daasebre Osei Bonsu that government has signed a 220 million Dollar loan agreement with the Brazilian and Indian government for the procurement of tractors and other farming implements to mechanize and modernize agric in the country. 

The Minister interacted also with members of the Kumasi Traditional Council where he explained some of the policies of government in the agric sector to them while they also made various suggestion about how the sector could develop. Among the pieces of advice they gave were improvement in feeder roads that lead to farming areas, construction of more ware houses to store excess food stuffs and ranching for cattle. They lauded the planting for food and jobs initiative which they said is yielding positive results. 

At a meeting with the Tepamanhene, Nana Adusei Atwenewa Ampem, the Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto, said government has a strategy to substantially reduce the more than one billion Dollar annual rice import bill within the next three years with Ashanti and Central regions as the focal areas, especially the Ahafo Ano and Adansi districts which have the capacity to feed the nation with her entire rice needs. 

He met also with members of farmer based organizations in the two Ahafo Ano districts during which he disclosed that government is constructing a total of 80 warehouses this year to be replicated next year to store excess farm produce to avoid losses. The farmers and the chiefs, most of who are also crop farmers, took turns to lay bear their production challenges for government’s attention.

 Later, the Minister inspected a rice mill built by government about eight years ago at a cost of 127 thousand Ghana Cedis. However, for unexplained reasons, the facility has been taken over by a private person and used for about five years now. In an interview, the Minister asked the rice mill operator to reimburse the government the entire investment or face the consequences.