NDC assures guaranteed prices for farmers

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) would pay a minimum guaranteed price for cereals and other food crops to revolutionise agriculture when it formed the next government.       It said the Afram Plains and the North would be the food basket if irrigation facilities were made available to farmers, especially when the farmers were assured that their produce would be bought at a good price to give them a qualitative sustained livelihood.      Mr. John Dramani Mahama, running mate to Professor John Evans Atta Mills, NDC Flag bearer said these during mini rallies at Ekyi-Amanfrom, Tease, Maame Krobo and Kwaekese, all in the Afram Plains.      The rallies, which formed part of Mr. Mahama's 10-day tour of parts of the Eastern Region were attended by enthusiastic crowed that gave him rousing welcome.      Mr. Mahama said when the NDC stepped up rice and other cereal production, the government would be able to feed educational institutions easily and at a lower cost that would pave the way for feeding of all pupils and students in schools within the Free Compulsory Universal Basic Education (FCUBE).       At Kwaekese, Mr. Mahama said it was sad that the electric poles the people themselves had erected through Self-Help Electrification Projects (SHEP) had remained standing for about 8 years now without being connected to the national grid.      He said the bitumen roads the NDC constructed in the Afram Plains, the NPP had not added a metre of bitumen to those stretch which had remained in the state that they were.      He said the NDC was the government who opened up the area by providing telecommunications and transport facilities so that the youth could sell their foodstuffs without coming to Accra to seek greener pastures.       The NPP government did not find it important to add any value to the area, he added. GNA