Lack of storage facilities is impeding agriculture production and growth as most farmers after bumper harvest are not able to store for future sales, the General Agricultural Workers Union (GAWU), Ghana Trade Union Congress (TUC) has stated.
“If you are a farmer and you get a bumper harvest you are doomed because you can’t store the food, it will get rotten and once it gets rotten, you waste your resources, bumper harvest has now become a curse instead of a blessing to farmers,” Mr. Edward T. Kareweh, GAWU General Secretary said.
He called for the construction of food storage facilities in the country which he described as vital to improving food security.
Mr. Kareweh indicated in an interview with the Ghana News Agency in Tema stressing the need for storage facilities to be constructed at the farm gates and warehouses in the cities for farm produce to curtail the rate at which foodstuffs were perishing.
Mr. Kareweh added that 60 percent of yam produced on the farm does not get to the final consumers because of the unavailability of storage facilities and poor road networks.
“When you move to the farm gates, food is cheap because the road to the farm is deplorable and some are not accessible at all so much of the food gets rotten at the farm gate,” he said.
He added that people involved in the agriculture value chain were usually hugely challenged as to the resources and other facilities were usually wasted.
“Go to the market and see the amount of food that is rotten there, people bring these foods, pay transport cost on it and bring it to the market and it gets rotten.
“Even if it rots at the farm gate it is better than to bring it to the city because you’ll incur cost on it,” Mr. Kareweh added.
By Elizabeth Larkwor Baah GNA
