Cassava becomes scarce food crop in the Bono East Region

A report coming from the Bono East Region suggests that farmers in the region are refusing to sell their farm produce to the indigenes.

Reporting via telephone on the Happy Morning Show, Happy 98.9 FM’s Bono East correspondent Augustine Adombiri revealed that, farmers in the Bono East Region prefer to sell their cassava to traders from Accra and Kumasi rather than to traders in their own communities. And this has made a rather locally and massly produced crop in their locality scarce as a “food crop” but abundant as a “cash crop” elsewhere.

A concerned resident of Sunyani in the Bono East Region, identified as Adwoa Stella, cried out at the cost and stress one has to go through to get a few tubers of cassava. She said, “Cassava has become really expensive. Without 10cedis, you cannot buy cassava to feed your entire family. Traders from Accra and Kumasi buy all the cassava in bulk, making it really scarce in Sunyani.”

Adwoa Stella also revealed that, huge fights and struggles occur whenever residents of Sunyani visit the market to buy cassava. “You can’t buy cassava if you can’t fight. The market women also sell the cassava to us at steep prices. You now have to buy cassava worth 10cedis to be able to feed your entire family. It was never so at first. Cassava has now become surprisingly expensive,” she said.

Bono East catchment area has a vast arable land that supports the cultivation of cocoa, cashew nut and mango as their main cash crops in addition to food crops such as yam, cassava, plantain, cocoyam, maize and rice.