Farmer calls for gov’t subsidy on agric inputs

Mr Twumasi Ankrah, Managing Director of Twumasi Farms at Kwasibuokrom in the Brong Ahafo Region has appealed to government to subsidise agricultural inputs to enable farmers produce more.

He said farming as a profession could become more attractive to the youth if government takes pragmatic measures in supporting farmers and addressing the fundamental challenges of post-harvest losses and lack of capital among other things.

Mr Twumasi Ankrah, who was adjudged the 2011 Brong Ahafo Regional Best Farmer in piggery made the appeal when he took newsmen round his farm at Kwasibuokrom in the Jaman South District.

He said lack of capital and high interest rate from financial institutions had contributed largely to the inability of most farmers to expand their farms.

He asked corporate bodies to support government to make agriculture attractive by increasing the number of scholarships to students interested in farming so that the teaming youth would develop the taste for it.

Twumasi Farms was established in 2009 on a four-acre piece of land with less than 10 pigs, but currently can boast of 400 pigs in different sizes, the 50-year-old farmer said, adding that he was working hard to increase his production to 100 pigs every month by the year 2015.

He described pig rearing as a lucrative business but the challenges in it are the high feeding cost.

The farm has in addition to the piggery, turkeys and goats as well as aquaculture and had attracted many customers not only from the Brong Ahafo Region but other parts of the country.