….As farmer demands compensation.
Despite the introduction of the Planting for Food and Jobs Policy by the Nana Addo-Dankwa Akuffo-Addo’s NPP government as a means of making the country self-sufficient through agriculture, and also make the venture enticing to the youth, some farmers continue to suffer at the hands of their land owners who consistently threaten to eject them, after toiling for years to cultivate the land.
The story is not different at Gomoa Manso in the Central Region where some farmers are facing threat of eviction by their land owners who claim wants to sell the land to a company.
Pieces of information gathered indicates that on the 15th of August this year, an announcement was made through a local public address system that the Royal Asona family of Agona Nsaba family who are the custodians of a tracts of land at Manso are requesting anyone who has been given permission to farm on the said land to remove all their crops from the land with immediate effect, as the family want to sell the land to a company, which was again repeated on the 13th of September.
Though effort to reach members of the Royal Asona family of Nsaba proved futile at the time of filing this report, some of the farmers who our correspondent had the chance to speaking with said they pay royalties to the family every year, and are therefore shocked at the turn of events by the family.
Some who claim have cultivated on the said land for almost thirty years pointed out that farming is their only occupation through which they are educating their children and feeding their family, and as such, asking them to remove their crops from the land without any compensation is like beating a child and telling him not to cry.
One of the farmers, Mr. John Aryeequaye who cultivates plantain, cassava and corn on a three acre portion of the said land noted that he can not claim ownership of the land as it belongs to the Royal Asona family of Nsaba, however, he has nowhere to remove the crops to, and is therefore demanding a compensation of GH 200,000.00 from the family.
The 55 year-old farmer said he has been cultivating the land for the past twenty years, all of which he pay royalties to the Royal family, yearly.
By: Robert Ayanful