Wa, Jan. 23, GNA - Members of the Seed Producers Association of Ghana (SEEDPAG) has appealed to the government and all other financial institutions to make loans ready for farmers in March every year to enable them to prepare their fields adequately to increase food production in the country.

They said credit for farmers had always delayed, resulting in limited land extension, poor land preparation and poor growth and yields of crops due to erratic rainfall pattern. The farmers however, advised government and the financial institutions to pay the loans in three installments, first for land preparation, second, for weeding and third, for the harvesting and carting of crops.

SEEDPAG made the appeal at a day's sensitization workshop on "support peasant agriculture through increase financing and improve farming methods" organized for its members from Upper West, Upper East and Northern Regions in Wa. Business Sector Advocacy Challenge Fund (BUSAC Fund) sponsored the forum.

The farmers said when loans are given in a chunk to some farmers, they turn to divert the money for other uses rather than investing in farming and that had caused the huge indebtedness by farmers to the banks.

The SEEDPAG urged the government to liaise with farmers organisations to help identify farmers they consider hardworking and who took farming as business for credit assistance to move agricultural development forward. "It has come to our notice that credit for farmers had been given on the basis of political affiliations rather the real farmers benefiting from such credit facilities and this must be discouraged", the farmers warned.

The SEEDPAG called on the government to wave tax on farm inputs, especially fertilizers and allow more importers to bring in more of the commodity and make them available and accessible to farmers throughout the country. That, the farmers contended, would be more beneficial to farmers rather than the ad hoc arrangement made by the past government in subsidizing the commodity that benefited few individuals and also promoted corruption. SEEDPAG pledged to keep its house clean by compelling its members to meet their financial commitments and obligations with the banks while it would also weed out the bad ones from the association to build a sustainable trust with the government and the banks.