The Savannah Zone Agricultural Productivity Investment Project (SAPIP) says it has created market linkages to enhance rice productivity amongst rice farmers and buyers in the Northern sector of Ghana.
SAPIP is a project being implemented by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture to support government’s flagship programme Planting for Food and Jobs; with funding from the Agriculture Development Bank (ADB).
The linkages, the project implementor say are expected to facilitate and create more sustainable market access and other support services for value chain actors where smooth business deals can be operated.
It could be recalled that some months ago, Commercial Rice Farmers in the Fumbisi Rice Valley in the Builsa South District of the Upper East Region expressed worry over what they described as poor market for their produce and possible post-harvest losses.
But speaking to some of the farmers in Fumbisi, Project Coordinator of SAPIP, Felix Darimaani noted that his outfit was ready to address the farmers’ market concerns, the reason it created the market linkages.
“Activities of market linkages are very dear to our hearts and we are happy to be here today to explain the market linkages created between the value chain actors to enable them to have smooth business deals. For us, we want to support many farmers and also to attract other investments into the areas we operate.” He explained.
Touching on how far the project has gone, Mr. Darimaani pointed out that the Ministry of Food and Agriculture in the past focused only on production without much attention on markets and processing but that has been overturned.
He said “Value chain development is now the new focus which delves into issues of inputs, production, marketing, and processing. We want to create that environment for farmers where their worries will be how many arches can they farm and not markets.”
The District Director of Agriculture for Builsa South, Sylvan Dauda Danaa, on his part entreated the farmers especially commercial rice farmers not to worry saying; issues relating to market for their rice produce will soon be a thing of the past.
He added that his outfit will continue to engage with other potential buyers in and out of the country to get market for their produce.
Source: A1Radioonline.com|101.1MHZ|Moses Apiah|Ghana
