President John Dramani Mahama has unveiled plans to establish a maize processing plant in the Sissala area of the Upper West Region as a direct response to the recurring oversupply facing maize farmers.
He was speaking during a citizens’ engagement at the University of Business and Integrated Development Studies on Saturday, 12 September, as part of his Resetting Ghana Tour.
The president said the facility would create a reliable market for farmers while converting maize into products for both local consumption and export.
“We are going to set up a maize processing plant in the Sissala area. The plant will not only buy the maize, but it will also process the maize for the market and for export, and so I believe that this glut will become a thing of the past,” he said.
He explained that the plant would go beyond simple purchasing by adding value to the crop, thereby encouraging higher production with the assurance of a sustainable outlet.
President Mahama also disclosed that government would increase funding to the National Food Buffer Stock Company to enable it to buy more surplus maize from farmers.
He noted that limited storage space had previously restricted the company’s capacity to absorb excess harvests and announced plans to construct silos at its storage centres.
“Aside from that, we are increasing the amount of money that we are giving to Buffer Stock to off-take the excess maize. The problem that the Buffer Stock has had is that they don’t have enough storage so when they buy some maize, their warehouses are all full and they have nowhere to keep the excess maize and so we are building silos for them in all their storage centres,” he added.
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