At a news conference in Tamale, the Director of Administration of the association, Abdul-Hakeem Issah, said smallholder farmers who took loans to farm were currently struggling to repay the loans due to the unavailability of buyers.

"The ban has contributed to the reasons the country has fewer dollars today," he claimed.

According to him, soybean farmers and actors engaged in the local value chain were losing their investments and livelihoods due to the ban.

Mr Issah further said that foreign buyers had left the domestic market, resulting in low demand for the commodity, while others were also withdrawing their investment from soybean production.

"The ban is negatively impacting on the youth in agriculture; it will also affect maize production as farmers are unable to have good prices on their soybeans to be able to buy fertiliser,” he added.

Ban  

On October 5, 2020, Parliament passed the Export and Import of Soybeans Regulation 2020 (L.I. 2432) to regulate soybean trade in the country.

The regulation was to provide the licensing system for the exportation of soybeans in commercial quantities out of the country to ensure availability of the beans for domestic use to meet local processing requirements.

However, since the passage of the regulation, there has been low market for the commodity, and GHASFAA says it is because the foreign buyers — said to be the main off-takers of the commodity-- had since left the shores of the country.

More than 100,000 metric tonnes of soybeans produced by farmers across the country in 2021 and 2022 are still available due to the lack of a ready market, the Daily Graphic’s checks revealed.

Currently, a 100-kilogramme bag of soybean is sold at GH¢400 at the farm gate as against the previous price of GH¢650 for same quantity before the ban.

Appeal

Mr Issah expressed fear over a looming soybean shortage in the country if nothing was done to provide a ready market for the commodity to enable members to return to their farms this season.

He, therefore, appealed to the government to lift the ban, saying soybeans farmers would cut down production of the commodity if the appeal was not heeded.

”Government should allow individuals with capacity to export soybeans to do so without frustrating them to enable the industry attract the needed investment,” he said.

The country’s annual soybean production potential is 700,000 metric tonnes, covering an area of about 250,000 hectares, while the area under cultivation is about 125,000 hectares.

The combined processing and export gap of soybean is 228,000 metric tonnes, while imports, mainly processed soy meal, amounted to about 200,000 metric tonnes of grain equivalent, leading to an unmet market demand.