The farmers of Amezdofe have called on the government through the ministry of Agriculture for help but to no avail. Amezdofe is a popular farming community in the Ho West district at the Volta Region. The land is very fertile and supports the cultivation of many crops including rice, tea, grapes. However, the story of this community is one of rejection and lack of support from the government. This was revealed by the community folks when a team of Agric today reporters visited the area.
“We grow every crop in this area. Our women cultivate tomatoes, pepper, garden eggs, etc but when the time is due for harvest we do not have a good market for these produce. Our tomatoes are one of the finest of the in the market because we do not apply any fertilizer on it yet we do not have good price for them and this is having an untold hardship on the farmers”. Mr. Atikpui, senior citizen of Amezdofe, said.
According to him, because of the nature of their land, all their farms are on the hill; and cultivating tomatoes for instance becomes very difficult because the farmers have to descend to a valley to get water and carry the water on their heads to the top of the mountain to irrigate their vegetables. This makes it very herculean for them and at the end of production very little money is realised from their hard labour.
Attempts by the local farmers to get some help from the government have been futile. “We have written several letters to the Ministry of Agriculture in our regional headquarters at Ho to supply the farmers with water pumps and tubes to aid in our irrigation but everything proved futile. I have done several follow ups yet nothing good has come out of it. I want to use your medium to let the government know what we are going through here. Our road from Neve to Amezdofe is very bad that the truck drivers do not want to drive to this place. We are pleading to the government to come to our aid to rectify these issues for us”. The Assembly man, Richard Amah, said.
