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Farmers want
loans for farming in March – SEEDPAG
Wa, Jan. 23, Ghanadot/GNA – Members of the
Seed Producers Association of Ghana (SEEDPAG) has appealed
to the government and all other financial institutions to
make loans ready for farmers in March every year to enable
them to prepare their fields adequately to increase food
production in the country.
They said credit for farmers had always delayed, resulting
in limited land extension, poor land preparation and poor
growth and yields of crops due to erratic rainfall pattern.
The farmers however, advised government and the financial
institutions to pay the loans in three installments, first
for land preparation, second, for weeding and third, for the
harvesting and carting of crops.
SEEDPAG made the appeal at a day’s sensitization workshop on
“support peasant agriculture through increase financing and
improve farming methods” organized for its members from
Upper West, Upper East and Northern Regions in Wa.
Business Sector Advocacy Challenge Fund (BUSAC Fund)
sponsored the forum.
The farmers said when loans are given in a chunk to some
farmers, they turn to divert the money for other uses rather
than investing in farming and that had caused the huge
indebtedness by farmers to the banks.
The SEEDPAG urged the government to liaise with farmers
organisations to help identify farmers they consider
hardworking and who took farming as business for credit
assistance to move agricultural development forward.
“It has come to our notice that credit for farmers had been
given on the basis of political affiliations rather the real
farmers benefiting from such credit facilities and this must
be discouraged”, the farmers warned.
The SEEDPAG called on the government to wave tax on farm
inputs, especially fertilizers and allow more importers to
bring in more of the commodity and make them available and
accessible to farmers throughout the country.
That, the farmers contended, would be more beneficial to
farmers rather than the ad hoc arrangement made by the past
government in subsidizing the commodity that benefited few
individuals and also promoted corruption.
SEEDPAG pledged to keep its house clean by compelling its
members to meet their financial commitments and obligations
with the banks while it would also weed out the bad ones
from the association to build a sustainable trust with the
government and the banks.
GNA
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