Farmers encouraged to run farms on business modules

Farmers have been advised to apply business modules as part of their farming activities.

It is believed that if farms are run like a small or medium scale enterprise it will ensure investments of time, labor and capital, which will lead to maximum returns.

This came up during a business planning and capacity development workshop for members of Ghana Rice Inter-Professional Body (GRIB).

GRIB is an umbrella organization of rice farmers and stakeholders.

The workshop was aimed at training farmers to develop business plans and to think and act like entrepreneurs.

The farmers were also introduced to funding agencies such as Outgrower and Value Chain Fund (OVCF) and The Commercial Agriculture Fund.

GRIB President Imoro Amoro said that the training was the initial step to provide farmers with the tools to package their business.

"There are funding facilities available but if you are not packaged well, it will be virtually impossible to access them. A lot of agrarian societies don't have the tools," he lamented.

Some rice farmers Joy Business spoke to said they were impressed with the training exercise.

"Most of us do not know that there is no collateral on group loans...so can come together to access loans."

The farmers asked that the training should be expanded to cover more farmers.