Trade Coalition crafts prototype business plans for small farmers
The Ghana Trade and Livelihood Coalition (GTLC) is crafting prototype business plans to help transform dreary micro agricultural ventures into sustainable businesses, Mr Lambert Luguniah, Acting GTLC Programme Manager told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Ho.
He was speaking at the Coalition’s Volta Regional Chapter sensitization public forum on effective business planning on agricultural production on Thursday.
Mr Luguniah said the plans crafted for agriculture businesses at Jana in the Northern Region and at Kasseh in the Greater-Accra Region with few adaptations, could become relevant to similar ventures in any part of the country.
He said farmers generally approached their jobs as ordinary chores, which must change to enable the country to increase food production.
The Programme Manager said evaluation tours by GTLC around the country on its education and advocacy programmes, indicated that many farmers were picking seeds at random for planting, instead of using certified seeds.
Mr Luguniah said GTLC also found out that the capitalization of farming ventures through mechanization services was also poor as tractors and other machine pools were not enough to go round.
Reverend Alexander Avor, GTLC Volta Region Focal Person, expressed reservations that agricultural policies hardly affected peasant farmers who produce the bulk of the nation’s foods.
He therefore called on government to ensure that this year’s Farmers Day provided the forum for government to unveil policies that “would boost the confidence of the ordinary peasant farmer and resuscitate the lost hope…”
Rev Avor called on government to re-introduce import duties on certain food items, especially rice, poultry products and tomatoes.
Two resource persons took participants through business plan preparation and prospects in agriculture in Ghana.
The GTLC organizes periodic forums during, which pressing problems of farmers in each of the 10 regions in Ghana are discussed.
Source: GNA