Farmers to use warehouse receipts for loans

The Ghana Grains Council, in collaboration with the United States Agency for International Development and the Alliance for Green Revolution, is initiating measures to address post-harvest losses among small scale farmers.

The initiative has led to the establishment of warehouse receipting systems, which is a document in paper form or electronic, issued by the Ghana Grains Council to certified warehouses to indicate that specified grains of certain quantity and quality had been deposited in a warehouse.

The warehouse receipt is issued to the depositor who could be a farmer, trader, food processor or aggregator to use his/her grains as collateral to secure loans while waiting for prices of commodities to attract better sales on the market.

Dr Kadri Alfah, Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Grains Council made this known at a media brief in Tamale on Thursday.

He said the warehousing system would enhance about 3,000 farmers and processors for a more efficient storage and marketing of grains.

Dr Alfah said the system which was piloted in 2009 in the Northern Region is already making positive impact in the lives of many rural farmers, saying “it has significantly improved the incomes of small scale farmers in Kenya”.**