Extension officers embrace warehouse receipts system

Agriculture Extension Officers within the Sissala East and West Municipal Assemblies of the Upper West Region are optimistic that, the IFC’s Warehouse Receipt Systems project will help farmers to improve post-harvest management.

They acknowledged that the WRS initiatives would help farmers to get value for their investment.

At the end of a two-day training session held at Tumu in the Upper West Region by the Warehouse Receipt System (WRS) Project of the International Finance Corporation (IFC) of the World Bank Group, the extension officers admitted that the WRS initiatives would enable smallholder farmers to earn more money for their produce, thereby improving their livelihoods.

According to the Sissala East Municipal Director of Agriculture, Mr Clement Kawuribi, WRS activities present real opportunity for his outfit to support farmers to market their produce.

“This is what we have been waiting for and we believe that this would go a long way to improve the lives of our farmers,” he explained and added, “our farmers have produced a lot but marketing is a problem and we are excited to work with you on this initiative to support our farmers”.

An agricultural extension agent within the Sissala East Municipality, Haruna Dasmana also added that they are excited about the project because it will help farmers to determine the price for their produce.

“We believe farmers would be happy to hear what we have discussed particularly about they determining their own prices and will no longer accept lower prices often offered by middlemen”.

The Ghana Warehouse Receipt System Project, which is being implemented in nine regions of the country, is a technical assistance and advisory services project aimed at setting up a well-functioning regulated Warehouse Receipt System that is expected to facilitate an increased access to credit to farmers and the supply chain, linkage to structured markets and reduce post-harvest storage loses.

This intervention focuses on supporting a well-functioning WRS as a necessary pre-condition for the successful operations of the Ghana Commodity Exchange (GCX).

The project addresses WRS on a policy and regulatory level, system level, including technical advisory, training, capacity building and awareness-raising for various stakeholders in the public and private sector.