Farmers in the Upper East Region are expecting a good yield of sorghum and a ready market as their major buyer, Guinness Ghana Breweries, is ready to purchase the grain.
Mr Issac Pabia, the Regional Chairman, Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana (PFAG), said most of its members cultivated sorghum and they had cropped both the local varieties and a new hybrid seed, known as PAC 501, which had all done well.
In an interview with the Ghana News Agency in Bolgatanga, he said farmers in the Eastern Corridor, specifically the Pusiga District and Zebilla in the Bawku West District, had finished harvesting the Faranaaya variety.
Offtakers in the Bawku Municipality have also began purchasing it for Guinness Ghana Breweries.
However, Mr Pabia said the season had not been rosy due to poor germination experienced by the farmers as a result of dry spells, while others could not apply fertilizer to the crop at the right time for the same reason.
“We are encouraging more farmers to go into the business of farming sorghum because there is a ready market for it,” he said.
He said the Bongo District was introduced to the hybrid seed as a commercial crop for the first time in 2022 and there were indications of good results, which was attracting more farmers to engage in sorghum production.
“As farmers, we experience post-harvest losses, and this is occasioned by many factors.
So, we are going to gather our produce. You should be wary of how to handle it so it will have a longer shelf life and attract good prices,” he said.
Mr Pabia said one of the major challenges of farmers was good markets, which had been solved for the sorghum crop.
He urged the farmers to prioritise the needs of their families and when they made money from their farm produce adding: “We are not in normal times.”
He advocated against patronage of foreign foods at the expense of local ones to save the country some foreign exchange.
