Pepper farmers at Zaare irrigation farms in the Bolgatanga municipality of the Upper East region are begging the government to come and buy off their riped pepper which is getting rotten on the farms due to lack of ready market for the produce.
The pepper farmers say, they borrowed the money used in investing in the production of the vegetable and if nothing is done to get it out of the farms, they will lose their huge investments.
About 400,000 acres of land stretching from the Bolgatanga Municipality through Tono irrigation farm belt to Vea in the Bongo district is used in vegetable production mainly pepper, tomato and onions.
The farmers undertake all-year round irrigation farming using the irrigation company of the upper regions’ ICOUR, facilities through the Vea Dam and its canals.
According to these farmers, the ripped pepper is not getting to the market and whenever they try doing so, it becomes worse due to the sales battle between them and the traders.
“You can see the farm, there is no market for the pepper and no one is coming to buy. We don’t understand. Just look at the place, look at the pepper and how they are going bad and dried. So we don’t know what we are going to do now. We went and borrowed money to get started and how we are going to return to the farm again when all our investments are gone” Baba Adongo, a farmer said.
“We were farming tomatoes and buyers stopped buying the tomatoes and rather go to Burkina. Now we have shifted our energy and attention to the production of pepper, still no market for it” another farmer, Amigera Adongo has said.
“Look at the way the pepper is ripped yet we can’t get a market for them. So how am I farming next time? So the government should come to our aid. We are just begging. Look at this thing, what am I going to do? The market women don’t come again to buy and We don’t know the reason.”
According to the farmers, no buyer has even made an attempt to even visit the farms to bargain nor to reject the price because the buyers do not even visit the farms.
A visit to some of the pepper farms at Zaare revealed how the peppers are getting dried up and going to waste and according to the farmers, they can only harvest the peppers when there is a market for them due to lack of proper storage facilities that will reduce post-harvest losses.
From observation, the farmers are likely to lose everything if there is still no market for the pepper and that will reduce the confidence of farmers and people who have intentions to venture into vegetable farming.
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