Food Inflation: Gov’t To Transport Foodstuff To Market Centres
The Minister for Food and Agriculture, Hon. Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto has revealed that the government is lining up measures to cart foodstuff from farming communities to the market centres.
He disclosed this during a stakeholders’ meeting with farmers on Wednesday, November 2, 2022, in the Western North Region. According to him, this initiative will help to curb the high rate of inflation linked to the prices of foodstuffs on the market.
The hikes in fuel prices have compelled drivers to increase fares in the country and due to that, women who transport foodstuff from the villages to the market centres, especially to the cities increase the items to be able to hit their profit margin.
The farmers have also lamented the reluctance of drivers to cart their produce to the market due to poor road networks. At the stakeholders’ meeting, these vulnerable farmers showed great delight over the government’s decision to assist market women to cart their goods to the major cities.
The Food and Agriculture Minister indicated that “Now what I want to do is that, this inter-ministerial committee has been discussing with market women at Makola, Kejetia, and others, and the Minister of Transport is supposed to be arranging with transporters to visit those areas to transport the foodstuff to their specific destinations.
”But from this discussion, the Ministry itself is also going to take up its own initiative, we are going to link up Mr. Fordjour with the Farm Gate ….Mr. Ansah who is the Director of Crops is here with us and will lead our team to make all our arrangements and make sure we put up a kiosk on our compound at the Ministry, specifically for food. From here we are going to give it a lot of publicity so that everybody knows that this region is providing food for the people of Accra”.
The farmers at the end of the meeting urged the government to make the necessary efforts to implement this initiative which will help them, traders, and consumers, alike.