Okra farmers in Asuano, near Nkoranza in the Bono East Region, are worried about the extremely cheap prices usually offered by the market women who buy their produce at the farm gate.
Asuano is well noted for its large-scale okra farming all-year round. Okra farming in Asuano is mainly done along the banks of the Pru river, which passes through the area.
The farmers rely on rainwater during the rainy season and resort to irrigation, using the Pru river during the dry season.
Due to the all-year round okra farming, the crop is in abundance almost all the time in the area, with some market women, especially the local market women, taking undue advantage of the situation to offer outrageously low prices for the crop.
This is a major challenge facing these okra farmers who are counting on other buyers from outside the Bono East Region to come and offer them better and competitive prices for their produce.
A spokesperson of the farmers, Mr. Isaac Boakye, told Apiah-Kubi of Fabea FM in Nkoranza in an interview, that despite okra farming being a lucrative business, with the crop being rich in nutrients and having economic benefits, the farmers in Asuano are struggling to make ends meet.
“The cheating by the buyers has resulted in a significant decline in sales, leaving us in a state of distress”, he said.
He lamented that the soil for growing the crop is so hard that they need to irrigate it before the crop can grow.
In addition, the leader bemoaned that farming inputs such as fertilizers, weedicides, pesticides inflate in prices and has made it difficult in the farming activities.
“We are more than a hundred farmers on about 500 acres of the okra farm in the community. We owe some people loans we need to pay, but the low patronage is affecting us”, he cried out.
Mr. Boakye called on the government and other stakeholders to intervene and support them in finding solutions to the challenges they are facing.
“So far as okra farming is concerned, we’re among the areas where it is don on a large scale. On of our challenges is the hardness of our farmlands, compelling us to spend a lot of money on manual irrigation activities till the crop is ready for harvesting”, he also said.
Some of the farmers also expressed their dissatisfaction with the low patronage in the okra business.
“We are really suffering,” said one of the okra farmers, blaming the low patronage on various factors, including some customers’ self or own prices.
As the situation is still pending, the okra farmers in Asuano are hoping for a swift response to their plight to avoid further losses and ensure the sustainability of their livelihoods.
Credit: Apiah-Kubi, Fabea FM, Nkoranza
