Some financial institutions are harassing smallholder farmers in the Saboba district of the Northern Region to refund loans they collected for the 2014 farming season.
The farmers are unable to refund the loans because large quantities of their produce, mainly soya beans are locked up in stores.
Madam Mariam Adam Kadiri, Saboba District Director of the Ghana Developing Communities Association (GDCA) ‘Empowering for Life’ project brought this to the fore at a day’s media review in Tamale.
This, according to her has worsened the living conditions of the smallholder farmers in the Saboba district where poverty is endemic.
She passionately appealed to government to alleviate the plight of the affected farmers by clearing their stock.
“We are actually working in three out of the four area councils in the Saboba district and in almost all the communities that we went to or the groups that we are working with they have soya beans as their commercial crop that they cultivate.”
She narrated that some companies encouraged the farmers to produce in large quantities but failed to pay for the supply.
“Some of the farmers were encouraged by some organizations to cultivate it in large quantities and they even promised them of good market whenever they harvest yet these people have harvested and they are stuck in the communities.”
Madam Mariam Adam Kadiri expressed grief over the situation. “This is going to deepen the poverty situation in the communities because they have used the little monies they have and some of them have even gone in for loans for actually going into cultivate these crops.”
“If these crops are not bought or given ready market I don’t think these people will be enthused to actually cultivate more crops: you realize that for example fertilizers are sold to them on credit and sometimes they buy it with the hope that after cultivating and selling the profit that they will make they will repay and keep the rest.”
Executive Director of the Ghana Developing Communities Association (GDCA), Osman Abdul Rahaman admonished government to create marketing opportunities for self help groups especially women who are into agro processing.
He said the GDCA under the Empowerment for Life project will continue to provide technical knowhow to individuals and organizations who are self reliant.
“We want to approach development from the prospective of working with community and other social groups to ensure that they are able to first of all examine themselves, their surroundings and the resources they have so that they can take advantage of all these to undertake activities that will eventually improve their lives.”
“We try to improve their capacity to be able to organize and to able to have some technical skills to generate the wealth that is required of them to improve their livelihood.”
The Empowerment for Life project funded by Donor Fund Managers, STAR-Ghana was carried out by the GDCA to model participatory governance.
The project was implemented in three districts of the Northern Region, namely Savelugu-Nanton Municipal, Sagnarigu and Mion Districts.
The project sought to bridge the yawning gap between policy formulation and implementation by empowering socially excluded groups to effectively participate in the planning and implementation of the development of their respective districts.
The overall expected outcome of the project was to ensure that the needs and demands of recognized women and youth groups, associations and people with disabilities are satisfactorily addressed in the district assemblies’ action plans and budgetary allocations.
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By: Abdul Karim Naatogmah/citifmonline.com/Ghana