Tomato
glut hits Upper East Region again
Bolgatanga (Upper East) 30 March 2000
Dry season
tomato farmers in the Tono, Vea and Pwalugu irrigation areas of the Upper East
Region have urgently appealed to the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) to
assist them to get better prices for their produce.
According
to them, market queens from Accra, who incidentally are their major customers,
have taken advantage of the peak harvest to lower the price of a crate of
tomatoes from 120,000 cedis to a rock-bottom price of 40,000 cedis within a
week.
Mr
Odame-Adufu, a tomato farmer, who made the appeal on behalf of his colleagues
in Bolgatanga on Wednesday, said if immediate measures are not taken by the
government to address the perennial problem of tomato glut in the Region, the
country's laudable agricultural policies would be defeated.
He said in
view of the high cost of agro-chemicals, fertilisers and other agricultural
inputs, as well as the high cost of land preparation, most farmers may go
berserk if the government does not intervene to stabilise the price of
tomatoes.
Independent
information gathered in Navrongo and Bolgatanga by the Ghana News Agency
indicates that the market queens, who operate in the form of a cartel, are
opposed to significant increases in the farm gate price of the produce in order
to create shortages in Accra the cities to maximise profits.
Mr
Odame-Adufu asked the government to speed up with the divestiture programme of
the Pwalugu Tomato Factory, to absorb tomatoes produced in the Region,
especially during the dry season.
He also
called on the authorities to take a critical look at the marketing of
agricultural products in general by providing cold stores and other storage
facilities that can be rented by farmers.
"The
Youth in Agriculture Programme and other agricultural policies designed to
boost local food and cash crop production will not achieve the desired results
if the marketing and storage side of what is produced is not tackled," he said.
It would be
recalled that last year's National Farmers Day was held in Bolgatanga, with the
main aim of encouraging Ghanaian farmers to boost local agriculture.
GRi../
GSE All-Share Index marks time for the second time in 24 hours
Accra
(Greater Accra) 30 March 2000
The main
market index, the GSE All-Share Index, marked time for the second time in 24
hours although bids jumped over the one million mark, thanks to hunger for
Mechanical Lloyd shares.
The index
remained at 760.86 points while the change for the year stood still at 3.36 per
cent.
Total
volume of shares that actually changed hands on Wednesday plummeted to a mere
4,000 from 58,000.
Bids were
far higher on Wednesday at 1,043,100 shares compared with only 93,000 on
Tuesday.
One million
bids were for Mechanical Lloyd shares but there were only 52,900 offers and no
sales.
There were
31,200 bids for Unilever shares but there were only 6,700 offers.
Total
offers remained in the same region at 1,249,710 compared with Tuesday's
1,232,210 shares, and as much as 757,600 offers were from SSB Bank but there
were only 1,400 offers and no sales.
Market
capitalisation remained at 3,244.34 billion cedis.
The
following are the last prices of listed equities in cedis:
ABL 500
AGC
18,700ALW 2,486
BAT 460
CFAO
40
EIC 1,880
FML 960
GBL 1,450
GCB 885
GGL 976
HFC 770
MGL 200
MLC 150
MOGL 14,550
PAF 294
PZ 800
SCB
19,500
SPPC 150
SSB 2,000
UNIL 1,848
UTC-E 125
CMLT
421
GRi../