Prof Nyarko
RURAL FARMERS are set to get ready markets as government takes steps to give them the ability to eliminate middlemen, sell direct, and control the market supply and price with a new technology that provides a seamless process from sale to delivery to payment.
The 21st century technology, which was conceived and developed by the US-based Center for Technology and Economic Development (CTED), gives farmers and buyers the opportunity to deal directly for locally farmed products.
The move forms part of a plan to modernise the farm sector and boost rural incomes and living standards in the overall scheme to rejuvenate the countryside by government of the New Patriotic Party (NPP).
Speaking at a sensitization programme for farmers at Kumawu and its surrounding communities, Director of CTED in charge of research dissemination, Prof Yaw Nyarko said the app gives farmers a direct choice in outsourcing their farm products that will be stored at secure warehouses to be built in Kumasi and Kumawu.
According to him, the research center is carrying out the project in collaboration with the Ministry of Trade and Industry through the Ghana Commodity Exchange that funded the initiative.
Government has already taken steps to modernise the country’s sprawling farm sector within two years in office in a bid to make it more efficient and better able to support the national economy.
Productivity remains low despite the fact that the agriculture sector employs more than half of the workforce in the country.
Prof Nyarko said CTED is partnering the Ministry of Food and Agriculture as well as the International Finance Corporation and 12 commercial banks in the country to help rural farmers to secure financial supports for their farm works in order to increase production.
Deputy Minister in charge of Industries, Robert Ahomka-Lindsay, on his part, said government is in the process of ensuring that agriculture produce are not only consumed but also use as raw materials to power industries.
According to him, the demand for agriculture products will be high in the coming years because of the one-district-one-factory programme of the government, asserting that agricultural raw materials for a factory in the Western Region can only last for two months.
He urged farmers to do more to increase their productivity by taking advantage of the Plating for Food and Jobs programme.
From Ernest Kofi Adu, Kumawu