Boost for farmers - RMG Ghana Ltd initiates GH¢100,000 support programme

Support for various sectors of the economy is flowing as part of measures to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on players within those spaces. Much as the support from the government and other agencies are helping, they seem not to be enough to meet all demands.

With food security key during these trying times, the role of farmers to ensure sustained food production is critical.

Against this background, RMG Ghana Limited has introduced a support programme to provide the needed agriculture products to help boost the production processes in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Christened the “Farmers Support Programme”, it seeks to provide farmers, technical staff and distributors with Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) worth GH¢100,000.00. They will also benefit from education to help save them from catching the disease.

At the launch of the support programme on May 7, 2020, in Accra, the Managing Director, Mr William Kotey, said: “Despite the havoc caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, RMG Ghana Ltd has been able to secure all its inputs supply for farmers for the upcoming major seasons in the northern regions and the rest of the seasons of the southern regions.”

He added that all inputs required by farmers across the country would be stocked at all distribution outlets.

Other initiatives

“It should be noted that farmers can purchase our products at the approved subsidised values as per the 2020 ‘Planting for Food and Jobs’ campaign.

“RMG Ghana Ltd is sacrificing part of its margins to make farmers comfortable with discounts on products supplied to cushion farmers in the pandemic period,” Mr Kotey noted.

He explained that the company was holding discussions with its international suppliers to ensure that other needs of farmers such as hybrid seeds and crop protection products were flown into the country under special arrangements in this trying times.

“All RMG’s registered farmers (cotton, rice, maize, and soya) will enjoy input credit. Farmers are to contact their association executives to access the credit package,” he said.

The Commercial Manager of RMG Ghana Ltd., Mr Martin Tettey Nartey, said: “Farmers in the country have been part of Ghana’s economic success story in recent and times past. As the world battles the global pandemic, farmers have to be well protected to continue feeding the nation. It is in this regard that the measures put in place by RMG Ghana Ltd will go a long way to empower them in their line of work.”

Educational campaigns

He said the support programme was estimated at benefiting 5,000 active farmers, adding that the distribution of the items and the educational campaigns would be undertaken through the company’s zonal managers and technical officers nationwide.

That, he said, would go a long way to protect farmers in their line of work and also empower them to produce more food for the nation.

“The farmers we are empowering will be able to cultivate 60,000 acres of maize, 7000 cotton lint, 10,000 acres of soya and about 6,000 acres of rice,” he noted.