Rice farmers along the Tono Irrigation Scheme in the Kassena-Nankana Municipal in the Upper East region have raised concerns over the low prices they receive for their produce amid a glut of rice.
The farmers claim that the lack of readily available buyers for their harvested rice has empowered middlemen to exploit the situation, purchasing a 220-kilogram bag at GH¢700, a stark decrease from the GH¢900 received last year for a 180-kilogram bag.
“We have harvested about 30 percent, and by next week, we will be at the peak level. But if you look at the market, the price is going down due to the lack of buyers,” a farmer and Chairman of the Federation of Water Users Association, Robert Kwame Abokah, told Citi News in Navrongo.
According to Mr. Abokah, it costs farmers in the area GH¢8,500 to produce at least 10 bags of 180 kilograms of rice in the last farming season when a bag was selling at GH¢900.
“As the buyers are giving us GH¢700 for the 180-kilogram bag, and the cost of production of 10 bags is 8,500 cedis for 1 acre, what it means is that the farmer will get only GH¢7,000. And that will be a loss of GH¢1,500,” Mr. Abokah lamented.
The significant drop in the price per kilogram is causing financial strain on the farmers, who are grappling with the economic impact of the reduced returns on their hard work.
A female farmer, Doris Adda, expressed her frustration that the government’s quest to rope in many women in agriculture is hampered by the activities of the middlemen.
“As the government is urging women and youth to go into farming, we have produced quality rice that will help the women pay their children’s school fees. But now, we are battling for a ready market to enable us to pay our children’s school fees…So, we are begging the government and stakeholders to come in and save us to sell our rice.”
Another farmer, Harry Kubaje, called on the government through the Ghana Standard Authority (GSA) to assist them with a standardized type of bag to curb the issue of extortion by the buyers.
“We used to have a standard sack that we continued till date. But the open market buyers have customized their sacks, further enlarging the sacks, taking more from us, and giving us less. And so, we urge the Ghana Standards Authority to come in and help us.”