Vegetable Farmers Cry Out

FRUITS AND vegetable farmers in the Ada East District of the Greater Accra Region are appealing to government to help reverse post harvest losses in the area.

According to the farmers, government should help them get wholesalers for their produce as they find it difficult to do so since some of them took loans to venture into farming and now have difficulty in paying back.

They were of the view that the situation has made it difficult for them to cater for their families and they therefore pleaded with the government to help them link up with wholesalers so that their produce would not go waste.

The farmers further appealed to government to consider the possibility of providing irrigation facilities to reduce the effects of persistent lack of rainfall in the area.

Over 40 percent of tomatoes and other perishable crops produced in the district go waste because most of the farmers lack adequate knowledge and information on post-harvest handling of such crops.

Ahuma Tetteh Larweh, a watermelon farmer told DAILY GUIDE in an interview that post harvest losses in vegetables and fruits presented a huge challenge that ought to be overcome if Ghana wanted to make agriculture profitable and competitive.

He believed that poorly timed harvesting; handling of harvested produce and lack of storage facilities had often made farmers desperate and left them frustrated.

“If government can help tackle post-harvest issues, there will not be too much glut in the market to warrant low prices and farmers would rather have a fair share of their products and continue to work hard for increased productivity,” he said.

According to him, capacity building in food security for poor farming households should be organized frequently by government to reverse post-harvest losses.

He urged his colleague farmers to be amenable to change and be ready to adopt new ways of doing things to increase and protect their crops.

The Ada East District Assembly is said to use about 40 percent of its resources to support agriculture every year.

Meanwhile, though the cost of a sizeable watermelon at the Ada market ranges from GH₵1.00 to GH₵3.00, nobody is interested in buying it.

Major waysides of Ada are flooded with watermelons but the fruit is left to rot as a result of unavailability of customers.

From Vincent Kubi, Ada