The New Juabeng South Municipal Assembly, (Eastern Region) has opened a “farmers market” to help curb food inflation. In an interview with Afeema News, the municipal chief executive, Hon Isaac Apau Gyasi indicated that the farmer’s market has come to stay to control the rising food prices on the open markets.
Mr Gyasi added that the food products are brought in by the local farmers directly from the farm to the farmers market for sale at relatively cheaper prices, this he hopes will compel traders to reduce their prices since most of their customers will start opting for the cheaper but the same quantity of items from the farmers market.
He said the market shall be open on every market day, thus Mondays and Thursdays from early morning till evening.
Food products available on sale include; yam, cocoyam, plantain, cassava, maize, fruits and vegetables, livestock, poultry fowls, etc are also available on sale at the farmers market.
Some food items on sale at the farmers market.
Responding to calls by the farmers to fix the infrastructural challenges at the farmers market as farmers resort to renting canopies for shade, the Municipal Director of Agriculture, Dr Tharzia Akwetey indicated that a stakeholders meeting shall be held in the first week of January 2023, to resolve those challenges.
That, after an oral survey of the major markets in the municipality she can conclude that prices at the farmers’ market are relatively cheaper which she hopes will curb food inflation in due course.
Mrs Akwetey agreed to the fact that transport fares have been their major problem since farmers will have to cart their own products to the market for sale since this is just to make sales convenient for farmers and thus is not part of the ministry of food and agriculture’s planting for food and jobs (PFJ) market