Prices at Agric Ministry market same as traditional markets – Traders

Some market women have belittled the efforts of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) in connection with the introduction of the pilot Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) market at the forecourt of the ministry to make available affordable food items to cushion Ghanaians in the face of food price hikes in the country.

According to the market women, sales at the PFJ market is not novel.

The women argued that the prices at the PFJ markets are relatively the same as the traditional markets across the country.

Discussing the PFJ market selling at affordable prices while the traditional markets sell at exorbitant prices, Madam Christiana Ayisi, the secretary to the Dome New Market Women's Association in the Greater Accra Region, contested that prices of food items such as yam and plantain are low in the traditional markets.

She belittled the efforts of the ministry while speaking in an interview with Nana Otu Darko, the sit-in host of the Ghana Yensom morning show on Accra 100.5 FM on Tuesday, November 15, 2022.

According to her, there are food items sold for GHS5, and GHS10 among others in the traditional markets.

She argued that the prices at the PFJ market are not novel.

She said what would be novel is if a bunch of plantain is sold for as low as GHS5.

“But on the same platform, some items are sold for GHS25 which is also on the high side.

“As stakeholders in the food supply chain, we are concerned with seeing the ministry breaking even after selling the food items at the prices the items are being offered to the members of the public.

“We want the ministry to come out boldly and tell us they made some profits in the face of the rising cost of fuel in the country,” she challenged.

“As women, we just don’t get up and increase prices,” she stressed and added that prices are determined by the cost of fuel.

She explained that many of these rural areas have bad roads so the middlemen have to hire the services of people to carry the items to the next available area where the roads are fairly good before they can be transported to the nearest market areas.

The food items are transported from the rural areas to the urban areas for the consuming public at the cost of the middlemen in the food supply chain in the country, she elaborated.

She dared the minister to sack all the market women if he was able to make some profits on the sale of the food items sold at the PFJ market.

According to her, the PFJ market is a ploy to antagonise the public against market women but asserted it will be fruitless