Aduamoa tiger nuts farmers call for private investors

Tiger nuts farmers at Kwahu Aduamoa in the Kwahu East District have called on the government to consider partnering with potential investors to find a ready market for their produce to boost production.

Speaking in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, Madam Abena Ntiamoah, a representative of the farmers noted that, there was so much workload on farmers during planting and harvesting but all efforts to get buyers had been a major challenge.

She said farmers lacked the needed labour and the right farming tools and inputs to engage in large-scale production, explaining that growers had to often hire tricycles to convey the produce at exorbitant fees to their destinations, which she described as not cost-effective.

However, she said a few customers who appear to buy the products would always want to claim them at astonishingly cheaper prices, a situation that does not encourage mass cultivation.

Madam Ntiamoah, therefore, called on the Kwahu East District Assembly to provide farming equipment such as tractors, tricycles, and irrigation machines to help the farmers to expand their farms in readiness to feed the proposed tiger nuts factory awaiting construction under the ‘One District, One Factory (1D1F) programme of the government.

The Kwahu Aduamoa, a farming community with a population of about 1,200 inhabitants, is acclaimed as the hub of tiger nuts in the District as a large section of the people engages in the production of the nuts.

In addition, the people cultivate cassava, maize, groundnuts, pepper, tomatoes, plantains, and cocoyam.

Tiger nuts, also known as chufa, yellow nutsedge or earth almonds, health experts say are not actually nuts, but rather edible tubers, which are rich in Nutrients.

They maintain that the nuts contain a variety of nutrients and beneficial plant compounds that may improve digestion, reduce blood sugar levels, improve heart health, boost the immune system and help fight infections as well as act as an aphrodisiac.