Many vegetable Farmers in the Ketu South Municipality of the Volta Region have started counting their losses to Coronavirus.
The farmers who have invested thousands of Ghana cedis into Carrot, Lettuce, cabbage among other vegetables before, the deadly virus have seen their produce going waste.
They left the vegetables on the farm to have gone rotten since commercial buyers mainly from Togo and Accra are unable to buy due to restriction on movement.
Some of the farmers who spoke to gbcghanaonline.com, complained bitterly that, “buyers from far and near have stopped buying because consumers are now interested in staple food during the lockdown”.
When our reporter visited The Area and some selected farms at Adafienu, Hedranawo, Denu and Agbozume, etc many vegetables as mentioned above have truly gone bad on the farm.
A farmer loses between 3,600 to 10,000 depending on the number of vegetable beds one has and a bed of lettuce is around Gh¢300 to Gh¢350.
Efo Sammy, a young farmer said, “I’ve put all money into this and as you can see for yourself, I’ve lost everything because people are not interested”.
Another farmer called Mawusi also said, “all money for this crop season is gone and I don’t know how to raise another money for the upcoming onion season”.
They, however, pleaded with the government and Ministry of Food and Agriculture to support them with the COVID-19 Fund since the virus has destroyed their livelihood.
They again pleaded with the Government to do something about border closure to revive their cross border business in no time.
Ketu South Municipality is noted for commercial production of vegetables like Green Pepper, Tomatoes, Okro, Lettuce, Carrot, Cabbage, Onion for The European Market, United States of America, Asia as well as domestic consumption.
Story filed by Edzorna Francis Mensah
