Cassava: 'Remoteness of mushy areas cause of shortage' - MoFA

The remoteness of mushy areas and poor transportation to those parts of the country are some of the causes of the shortage of cassava recently, Deputy Minister of Food and Agriculture (MoFA), Dr. Ahmed Yakubu Alhassan, has said.

According to him, these factors, together with infrastructure issues, have conspired to affect the supply chain of cassava from the remote areas into the cities.

“…Know that it is a distribution problem, which is wider than the mandate of the ministry. There are transport issues, there are infrastructure issues, and there is remoteness of mushy areas in relation to markets. These are all things that are outside the mandate of the ministry,” he said.

He said Ghana produced about 17 million tonnes of cassava last year, which, in his estimation, was enough to meet demand for this year. “…We need just about 10 million metric tonnes to feed the Ghanaian populace,” he noted.

He called on the private sector to intervene to solve some of the challenges facing the agriculture sector.

“Ghanaians should use their resources to invest in agriculture as that is the only way to keep the system running. If we leave it only to the public sector, I am afraid there will always be shortage of funds and we will always have to rely on some external partners to give us the money sometimes as credit that we will have to pay with high interest rates,” he told Accra-based Citi FM.