Set guaranteed minimum price for agric produce — Tony Oteng Gyasi

Government, should as a matter of priority, set a guaranteed minimum price for the produce of young people in agriculture in order to make it attractive.

This is the assertion of former President of the Association of Ghana Industries, Tony Oteng-Gyasi. According to him, such a move is necessary to revolutionize agriculture.

He made these comments while speaking at the Citi TV/FM Ghana Rising Conference.

“Agriculture is the one industry where the higher the yield the less money you have at the end of the day because if there is a base bumper harvest, the price of maize collapses,” he stated.

He added, “So what then is the incentive to expand your input? So, the success of agriculture relies on incentives in a way; some countries have handled it well knowing that they still need the produce for raw materials.

“You guarantee the farmer that no matter what happens, no matter how big the harvest, I will pay you this minimum amount of money and that amount must be set to give the farmer not just a profit but a profit higher than what he would have gotten if he had put his money in the bank”.

“Those are areas where farmers need support and you give that guarantee minimum price so all that the young farmer going in has to know is that if I can produce five thousand bags of maize then I will get I’m going to get five million dollars, that is what we need to worry about, he stressed.

citibusinessnews.com