Cabbage Farmers in Apantubuom and Yaapesa in the Bosomefreho District of the Ashanti region, are appealing to government to come to their aid under the One District One Factory (1D1F) flagship programme.
The farmers, who are mostly commercial, say they have been consistently unable to recoup their investments and are struggling to repay their bank loans.
The farmers attributed the teething challenges of poor road network and lack of ready market for the produce as a disincentive to them.
Jonas Adu-Sei, said sometimes the cabbage and other vegetables got rotten on the farm due to the bad nature of the roads leading to the community, particularly during the rainy season.
According to him, due to the over-reliance on rain-fed agriculture, cabbage farmers could not space their production, which resulted in a glut and post-harvest loses.
They believed that cabbage farming could transform their economic fortune if the challenge of bad roads linking the farms to market centres was attended to and ready markets secured for the vegetable.
Madam Abenaa Attaa, also a cabbage farmer stressed the need for the government to fix the road challenges in the area as well as ensuring ready market for the produce to help improve its cultivation.
She said government’s One-Village-One-Dam (1V1D) initiative could help ensure all year round cabbage and other vegetables production if it was well implemented.
Madam Attaa said, would give meaning to the One-District-One-Factory (1D1F) project as that would require the establishment of a vegetable factory in the area.
Meanwhile, research indicates that consuming cabbage had exceptional health benefits to the human system including reducing the risk of blood pressure and risk of heart attack among others.