Green plantains
Plantain sellers in some market centres in the Kumasi Metropolis have confirmed importing plantain and cocoyam from Abidjan amidst supply challenges from farmers.
Prices of plantain have gone up in the last few months due to scarcity of it’s in the domestic market centres. There is high demand for plantain lately as demand exceeds supply, a seller explained.
Our visit to some market centers within the Kumasi metropolis saw three tubers of plantain selling at GHC10.00 and above.
There has been conflicting reports on shortage of plantain in Ghana between the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (Mofa).
The opposition NPP Presidential candidate earlier last week said that Ghana now import plantain from our neighboring countries.
But the Ministry of Food and Agriculture in quick rebuttal rejected claims that Ghana has added importation of plantain to its long list of food items imported into the country.
But Maame Konadu, one of the plantain leaders at Bantama market, in Kumasi, in an interview with Fox fm news asserted that plantain sellers often import plantain and cocoyam to beef up the existing basket in the market, due to the failure on the part of local farmers to produce for supply.
“We have been in this plantain business for too long, but now we have to fall on our neighboring countries to meet the demand for local consumption” she stated.
Maame Konadu, partly shifted the blame on authorities for failing to release land for large scale farming.
Attached is the Audio of Maame Konadu
