Farmers To Boycott Kufuor's Casava PSI

A group of farmers currently employed to cultivate cassava to feed the President’s special project on industrial starch under the PSI concept are up in arms against the management of the project.

Aside a demonstration last week by the farmers to press home their demand for better prices for their produce, THE INDEPENDENT gathered from Awutu Bawjiase where the Ayensu Starch Company (ASCO) is situated that farmers are threatening to abrogate their contract with the company.

The farmers are miffed at the low wages being paid them and likened their conditions to slavery because “we receive wages” adding that the conditions at the farm site have reduced them to “mere slaves” working on farms of slave masters.

THE INDEPENDENT check on the farm site revealed that the farmers have laid down their farming implement and have also stopped growing the cassava meant to feed ASCO.

This came to light when the farmers stormed the offices of the TUC to lodge a complaint with the executives of the General Agricultural workers Union (GAWU) about the raw deal being meted out to them.

Meanwhile, the Managing Director of ASCO, Mr. Andrew Quayson when contacted confirmed that the grievances of ASFA have come to his notice and as a result he met the Zonal executives four-times to seek ways of solving the matter.

He explained however that it was the 80 out of the 180 harvesters who were declared redundant who staged the demonstration.