Infiltration of Unregistered Seed Dealers worries Farmer group
Rural Care Frontiers (RCF), a group of farmers, have expressed concern over infiltration of unregistered seed dealers in the Bono, Bono East and Ahafo Regions.
These dealers, according to the farmers had flooded the market with varieties of fake seeds majority of the famers could not differentiate between the genuine and fake seeds.
This is contributing greatly to low and poor yields, thereby, affecting incomes and socio-economic livelihoods of the farmers in the three regions.
“We are unable to pay back loans and this situation is discouraging many of us and the youth from engaging in farming”, says Mr Charles Boateng, the Chairman of the RCF, a group comprising 1,810 farmers engaged in various crop productions such as maize, cashew, rice, cocoa, and vegetables.
Mr Boateng expressed worry that the seed dealers deceived “ignorant farmers” to buy seeds, which had problems during ovulations and thereby contributed to poor and bad yields.
He called on the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) to intensify monitoring in the seed market to flush out the unregistered dealers.
The MoFA must also identify certified dealers for farmers to buy seeds from them in the local communities.
According to Mr Boateng, the forum was in line with a project being implemented by the group to help remove bottlenecks and challenges confronting small holder farmers.
Titled: “Seed Dealers, Identified, Registered and Recommended for the General Public”, the RCF is implementing the 12- month project being funded by the Business Sector Advocacy Challenge Fund (BUSAC). Total cost of the project is GHc96,904.
Mr Isaac Adaebsah, the Consultant to the RCF noted the formal seed system in the country faced several challenges such as high prices, unavailability of seeds at the right crop seasons, lack of seeds storage facilities.
Research indicates that the seed supply chain and management at MoFA is bureaucratic because the sector is involved in registration of seed dealers, cleaning and grading of seeds, seed inspection and certification and packaging for sales.
All these activities take place at the regional capitals resulting in service delays to the seed dealers and consequent loss of productivity.
Source: Goldstreetbusiness