Food Glut At Techiman

Farmers in the Techiman District are complaining about poor returns on their investment as a result of low prices of their produce.

Mr Kweku Minka-Fordjour, District Director of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA), told the Ghana News Agency in an interview that the prices of items like tomato and groundnuts have fallen so low that "farmers cannot even recover their production cost, let alone to make profit".

He said if nothing was done to reverse the perennial problem it would discourage farmers from increasing production.

Mr Minka-Fordjour said as an interim measure, tomato growers could make use of the tomato factory at Tuobodom and hoped that more of such factories would be sited in the region to process the excess. Groundnut farmers could also dry and store to attract a higher price.

He advised the farmers to diversify into the production of other crops so that they do not over-produce to create a glut, which causes the fall in prices.

He said the price of fresh yams is relatively high as a result of their export to the European markets and this would continue to be so till mid-August when production reaches its peak.