Prices of foodstuffs such as rice, beans and maize have increased significantly in both the Bolgatanga and Wa market in the first quarter of 2021.
According to traders at the Bolgatanga foods stuff marke,t prices of foodstuffs have increased drastically because farmers prefer to sell their foodstuffs directly to middlemen to make more profit than selling it to the market women.
The traders say a bag of maize which sold at 200.00 cedis three days ago is now selling at GhȻ 220.00, a bag of Guinea Corn was selling at GhȻ 300.00 but is now selling at GhȻ320.00 while a bag of Beans and Gari which is selling at GhȻ 500.00 and GhȻ 480.00 respectively remain unchanged.
The traders attributed the increasing cost of maize and guinea corn to the operation of a beer factory in neighboring country Burkina Faso whose middlemen come to the Bolga Ayieya market to buy maize and guinea corn to feed the factory.
The Upper West correspondent for A1 Radio Dennis Bebane in an interview said a bag of Maize cost Gh 220.00 at Wa market, Gh 160.00 Tumu and Gh200.00 at the Lawra Market, a bag of Guinea cost 240.00, 240.00 and 280.00 at Wa, Tumu and Lawra market respectively while a bag of Groundnut is selling at Gh 480.00 at both Wa and Lawra market and Gh 360.00 at Tumu market.
The traders in the Upper West region attributed the increase in prices of commodities to the poor rainfall pattern that the region experienced last season which affected yield of food crops in the upper west region.
The Upper West Regional Manager of Ghana Chamber of Commerce, Jeremiah Bontariba Tengan said due to the poor rainfall pattern that resulted in poor yield, people had to find alternative use of foods for example the people rely more on groundnuts for the extracting oil due to poor yield of Shea trees which has significantly increased the price of groundnuts.
Mr Tengan advised the people to consider restraining themselves from selling to people whose aim is to export which is contributing to the high cost of foodstuff prices which led to hardship.
He advised the Ghana Buffer Stock to consider storing more foodstuffs especially maize because if the rain fail like the previous season it is going to bring extreme hardship to the people.
Source:A1Radioonline.com |101.1MHz| Ghana
