Just three years ago, Abdul Rahman Takoro couldn\u2019t afford to send all his eight children to school. Several dropped out, while he struggled to pay the fees for the rest.<\/p>\n
Takoro tried to work as a bicycle repairer, after the frustration of seeing his farm fail. Without any education or resources on farming, Takoro was losing money.<\/p>\n
\u201cI could invest about GHC200 into my 9 acre farm and I would lose all of it,\u201d Takoro said, speaking in Dagbani.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have suffered in this world,\u201d he said. \u201cI could not see any progress in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Takoro found a lot of hope in a simple SMS technology. A private communication company, Esoko, is helping farmers like Takoro access tips on weather, better farming methods and market prices.<\/p>\n
Currently the only way most farmers get such information is through extension officers. The government employees meet with farmers to provide information, but they barely reach a quarter of the total number of farmers in Ghana. As well, according to information from Ghana\u2019s Finance Ministry, about 70 per cent of extension officers will retire from active service in the next three years.<\/p>\n
The Minister for Food and Agriculture Clement Kofi Humado said that farmers can face large challenges.
\n\u201cThe Ministry has taken a serious view of market access to the extent that last year and this year for example small holder farmers particularly in Brong Ahafo, Upper East and Upper West regions have produced a lot of grains and are unable to send them to the market,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The agricultural industry in Ghana has been struggling as farmers lack education and resources to grow their yields meet demands and subsist under rising prices. A decade ago, agriculture contributed 40 per cent of the country\u2019s GDP, according to the country\u2019s agricultural ministry. Now, it\u2019s only 27 per cent.
\nAli Moris owned a 30-acre pineapple farm in Esuehyia in the Central Region. It\u2019s about 100 kilometres from Accra.<\/p>\n
\u201cI spent averagely about GHC2,500 on it but the yield was nothing to write home about,\u201d he said. \u201cI used all my money to high labourers to work on it, but it was obvious we were wasting our time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Without pricing information from extension officers or through text messages from companies like Esoko, farmers are often unaware of selling prices on the market. Sometimes middle men or women dictate their own price to the farmers. The farmers usually accept the meager offers – below the cost of production – leaving them poorer.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe try to explain to them why we want to pay a particular price for the produce we want to buy from them,\u201d said Hawa Seidu, who acts as a middle woman in Aframso in the Ashanti Region. \u201cBecause we hire vehicles to the villages and labour cost to load the produce onto the vehicles.\u201d<\/p>\n
Agriculture Minister Humado said the key issue is market price.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is, a database farmers can easily link into to know the price of, for example, maize in this or that market, or outside Ghana in the regional markets like Bamako in Mali,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Humado said the government is committing funding to the e-extension programme, which, among other things, will provide electronic extension services to farmers.<\/p>\n
One of those projects will be Esoko\u2019s informational text messages.<\/p>\n
Esoko has representatives who visit about 50 different markets in the various regions each day and compile the going price of foods. They relay that information to the Esoko headquarters, where it is packaged into simple and comprehensive SMS and distributed to the farmers and traders who are also subscribed on the platform. Farmers also receive information on weather patterns, when to plough their land, when to sow, apply fertilizer, check weeds and harvest.<\/p>\n
Takoro is one of about 120,000 farmers in the Northern Region making use of the information from Esoko. He\u2019s been receiving the SMS messages for two years.<\/p>\n