GRAINS COUNCIL PROVIDES WAREHOUSE FOR FARMERS (BACK PAGE, OCT 15, 2010 )

THE Ghana Grains Council (GGC), a private agricultural sector association in the country, has provided a warehouse to farmers to store their grains.
The certified warehouse pilot project at Nkoranza Breman in the Brong Ahafo Region will benefit more than 20,000 farmers from different farmer-based organisations in the country.
The United States of America (USA), through the US Agency for International Development (USAID), provided $543,655 as a grant to the GGC towards improving the performance of the country’s grain marketing.
The project will, particularly help smallholder farmers to avoid selling their grain at low prices, provide consumers with safer and more nutritious food and allow market actors to engage in transactions without the need to travel long distances to check on grain quality before buying it.
Mr Eric Opoku, the Deputy Brong Ahafo Regional Minister, who performed the inauguration of the facility at a ceremony at Breman near Nkoranza, said there were some major challenges facing agriculture in the country, including small farm sizes, averaging 1.5 acres per smallholder, and less than optimum yields estimated at one to two tons per hectare compared with about six to eight tons elsewhere.
He said the implementation of policies and programmes for a sustainable agricultural sector would, therefore, be the responsibility of the current generation and, especially, the government.
Mr Allen Flemming, the team leader of the Economic Growth Office, USAID, indicated that the US Government supported agribusiness and regional trade in agricultural commodities through Agricultural Development and Value Chain Enhancement (ADVANCE) projects under the USAID.
He said there was a great demand for uniform good quality maize in commercially viable quantities, both domestically for agro alimentary products and livestock feed and in West African sub-region.
He added that the current organisation of the maize storage and marketing did not permit the growing of the industry to meet those demands.