Farmers Advised to Establish Agricultural Cooperative Groups to Promote agricbusiness

Project Coordinator of North Carolina Agriculture and Technical University, Professor Osei-Agyeman Yeboah, has advised Farmers to establish agricultural cooperative groups in their communities to assist them improve upon their farm productivity and also increase their incomes.

He said agricultural cooperatives are specific groups owned and operated by the farmers themselves to boost their business productivity and increase yields and incomes.

Professor Yeboah gave the advised during a community best farm practices engagement on the USDA-National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) through the Centre of Excellence for Global Food Security and Defence project at Sung in the Karaga District of the Northern Region.

The USDA-NIFA project is being implemented in collaboration with 1890 Land Grant Universities such as University of Maryland East Shore, and North Carolina Agricultural and Technical University.

The project, being implemented in Northern and Upper East Regions, is supported by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research – Savanna Agricultural Research Institute (CSIR – SARI) to reach communities with the best technologies to increase food security and nutrition in the country.

Professor Yeboah, who is also the Director of Leonard Cohen Cooper, Jr. International Trade Center indicated that the establishment of agricultural cooperatives in the farming communities will create more opportunities for the farmers to enable them have better economic protection and also face lower risks farming challenges.

“Compared to individual Farmers, Agricultural Cooperated growers enter a bigger market to sell their products and also buy input supplies at lower prices,” he added.

According to him, Farmers benefit from the agricultural cooperatives affect market price and also improve the quality of goods and services.

Professor Yeboah appealed to farmers to also practice budgeting to enable them identify cost and income items that might otherwise be overlooked and also identify funds leftover which may be reinvested.

Professor Yeboah also recommended to farmers to practice accurate records keeping at any time of reconciliation, which would help them to report the correct amount of money spent or gained from the farm.

A Senior Research Scientist at the CSIR – SARI, Dr Issah Sugri, said the project was to research for the development and extension model, which sought to implement series of integrated interventions to propel sustainable and resilient crop-livestock productivity in the two regions.

He said the project was also to improve nutrition, value chain enhancement and market accessibility for farmers in the northern sector.

He noted that there were series of integrated production technologies in the communities to propel sustainable and resilient crop-livestock productivity to increase incomes, and food and nutrition security in the country.

By Ama Sena Fetrie