The Chamber of Agribusiness is getting ready to hold a protest, with the main justification being the unrestrained devastation of agricultural farmlands by illegal miners.
Investors are concerned about the future of their agriculture endeavors as over 1.2 million hectares of farmland have already been damaged, according to the Chamber.
CEO Anthony Morrison voiced his displeasure in an interview with Citi Business News, saying that illegal miners are still destroying the land in search of riches like gold in spite of numerous complaints.
“People’s investments have gone down the drain as a result of activities of illegal mining and galamsey actors. It is a call that we are working on this week. We intend to follow up with a press release and, after that, follow it up with a demonstration among the farmer front and agribusiness front. We are losing quite a lot,” he said.
Anthony Morrison further demanded immediate action from the president to reverse the trend, stressing that “we have lost trust with him [President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo] as a result of the fact that he is not protecting the livelihood of over 57% of the rural population that is directly involved in agriculture and we are talking about 17 million people”.
He continued by saying that the Chamber will soon begin a number of initiatives, such as a petition to the Food and Agriculture Organization and other foreign organizations to put pressure on the president to act quickly.
Anthony Morrison also voiced worries about the possibility of Ghanaian agricultural exports being banned if the situation worsens and safeguards are implemented in the importation of goods by European nations and other export destinations.
In his opinion, more needs to be done to increase investment in the agriculture industry.
“If there can be an immediate stop to the issues of galamsey because there are a lot of people whose prospective investors are on the ice as a result of galamsey going on in identified zones where they ought to be doing their investment,” Anthony Morrison stated.
