Farmers Want Education On Export Rules

Growers of citrus fruits have stated that they find the country’s export rules complex and difficult to comprehend.

This they say deters them from sourcing for ready buyers of their products in the international market. This concern was expressed by Nana Entsie Okor I, a citrus farmer, in an interview in Accra.

The inability of the Ghana Export Promotion Council to organize trade shows and international fairs for industry members was another setback, Nana Okor said.

“Our major problem is that we have not been able to hit the international market with our products and this is a concern to us because we are not getting the ready market for our products”.

He has, therefore, called for intensive education to enable them know what exactly the country’s export laws entail and how they could apply it to source for markets internationally.

According to Nana Okor, one major problem citrus farmers were facing was that they had not been able to come together and form an association.

He said a lot of efforts had been made but to no avail as the farmers are scattered, unlike cocoa cultivation where many farmers could be living close to one another.

He asserted that their inability to come together had been a great stumbling block in their way in respect of their desire to take advantage of the government's procurement procedures.

Nana Okor stressed the need for the Ghana Export Promotion Council to run constant and intensive nationwide educational campaigns to explain in very simple terms what the law entailed.

Such campaigns, he emphasised, would be extremely helpful to them as some of them are not that literate to read and understand the law.

When contacted, an official of the Ghana Export Promotion Council who pleaded anonymity, said the council had embarked on a series of public education programmes for exporters in the various industries.

Again, the council has set up a desk at its offices to advise producers and potential exporters on the rules of the industry.

The council, he said, had printed leaflets containing very simple explanation of the rules of export and other things embodied in the brochure, for everybody to understand.

Story : Suleiman Mustapha Share Your Thoughts on this article Name Email Location Comments Graphic Ghana may edit your comments and not all comments will be published