Katsina farmers flood markets with stored produce to buy inputs
Farmers in Katsina State have long devised ways of raising money to buy inputs and carry out other farm activities at the beginning of the farming season rather than wait for supply from government agencies. Investigation by this reporter in state showed that farmers, at the beginning of the rainy season, release produce stored from the previous harvest for sale to enable them buy needed input.
Our correspondent in the state, who went round some of the rural markets, discovered that prices of various farm produce have started dropping as farmers flooded them with the old produce to source money to buy fertilizer, pay for planting and other farming activities.
Malam Muhammad Na Funtua, a maize farmer, said the only store of value for the peasant and even large scale farmers in rural areas is farm produce.
“After every harvest, a rural farmer keeps some bags of his produce against the next farming season. At the eve of planting season, around the month of May, prices of farm produce naturally crashes as the rural market would be flooded with various produce brought by farmers who need cash for the takeoff of their farming activities,” he explained.
He noted that only few of the rural farmers were adequately oriented on banking processes, adding that was why storing farm produce was more popular among the majority of farmers.
Malam Muhammad further said that besides the harvest period which always saw the markets filled with bags of assorted grains, the planting season also commanded large supply of grains to the markets by farmers, a situation that always crashed the price of the commodities.
This reporter also went round Sheme, Funtua, Kafur and Bakori markets and noted that bags of maize and sorghum were both sold at N10,600 as against the N11,000 and N11,500, respectively, last month.
Similarly, soyabeans that was N18,000 a bag some weeks back, now cost from N16,000 to N17,000 depending on its variety. Only millet and beans were seen on stable prices of N14,000 and N28,000 partly because of their short supply and high demand particularly as the Ramadan fasting is about to begin.
A grains merchant in Kafur, Alhaji Danlami Usman, said the crash in prices of some farm produce was only for a short period of time.
“Every year, we experience this development and after some weeks, the price stabilizes and continue rising till the next harvest season, unless something unusual happens,” he said.
He added that many merchants were taking advantage of this window to buy the commodities in large quantities so as to make profit in a month or two.
In a different view, a sorghum dealer, Uzairu Abdullahi, said the development might be beneficial to consumers, especially as the month of Ramadan approaches.
“We are used to the rising cost of foodstuffs every fasting period but this year we seem lucky that the period has coincided with the planting season when there is large supply and crash in price of some food items in the market. Though, the situation might not stay long but I believe it will be a respite in the fasting period,’’ he said.