Help us find market for citrus fruit – Farmers

Citrus growers in Adansi South have appealed to the district assembly to help establish a processing plant to provide ready market for the fresh fruit they have been producing in huge volumes.

They said they were finding it difficult to market the fruit, something that had become a big disincentive to increased production.

Mr. Isaac Kwabena Sarkodie, Chairman of the Citrus Growers Association, at a press conference held at New Edubiase, expressed worry about the situation where they were not getting commensurate returns on investment.

They are often shortchanged - forced to sell the fruit at low prices to prevent these from going bad.

He stated that setting up of a processing plant would not only assure the over 150 growers of sustainable incomes to improve their livelihood but could entice out-of-school unemployed youth to go into its production.

Mr. Sarkodie also complained about the poor nature of roads running through the area and said tackling these must be made an urgent priority by the government.

Transporting farm produce to the marketing centres, he said, was a nightmare and identified the deplorable road network as a major cause of the high post-harvest losses in the district.

He added that this was counterproductive to agricultural development and must therefore not be allowed to persist.