Nana Kwao Adams, the Chairman of the Brong-Ahafo Maize Farmers Association, made the call at a stakeholders workshop held in the Techiman Municipality. The workshop was attended players in the maize value chain including farmers, retailers, buyers and middlemen.

The workshop forms part of activities of a project being implemented by the Association in collaboration with the Centre of Posterity Interest Organisation (COPIO), an NGO and service providers. With funding from the Business Sector Advocacy Challenge (BUSAC) fund, the nine month advocacy project is aimed at helping to remove bottlenecks hindering the economic activities of the farmers.

Nana Adams said the National Food Buffer Stock Company could help address the discrepancies and unfavourable prices of maize if it established and owned maize markets in the country. He observed with regret that prices of maize is very low and because maize growers have no other option, retailers and middlemen pegged their own prices and bought the products directly from farmers.

This situation, he said, is discouraging many of the growers who are gradually moving out of the business and appealed to the government to quickly intervene and set standardized measurement to determine prices. Dr John Akparep, a consultant of COPIO, said many of the maize growers are operating at a loss because of the inconsistencies in the use of the weighing scales for measurement.

He said a good price for maize would motivate more of the unemployed youth to go into commercial maize production under the Planting for Food and Jobs (PfFJs) programme and called on the government to intervene. Dr Akparep, who is a lecturer at the University of Development Studies (UDS) and a researcher, called on the government to consider putting up storage facilities and warehouses for the storage of maize to promote national food security.