HEED PLEA OF COTTON FARMERS (AUGUST 22, 2009)

A FEW decades ago, the textile industry created jobs for both skilled and unskilled labour in the country.
From Accra, Tema, Akosombo to Juapong, the textile companies boosted the local economy of these towns by providing livelihood for majority of the people.
The returns from the textile industry did not accrue only to their owners and employees but others such as transport owners, food vendors and cotton farmers.
During the glorious days when local fabrics flooded the market, there were as many as 30 firms producing textiles in the country.
These companies were established as a result of the import substitution policy adopted by the late President Kwame Nkrumah to offer affordable alternatives to the Ghanaian consumer and create jobs for the people.
Presently, 21 textile factories have collapsed over the past three decades due to the influx of cheap foreign fabrics, leaving three which are producing below capacity.
The cheap textile imports have plunged the local industry into even more serious crises with a drop in production from 130 million metres in the 1970s to 25 million metres now and a further 60 per cent drop in textile sector employment.
As a nation, we have failed to protect our local industries through a deliberate policy to maintain “the commanding heights of the economy”. Sometimes we have over-liberalised our economy to the envy of neo-liberal economists.
The experience that we went through in deciding to print fabrics for school uniform locally should serve as a wake-up call to rethink the liberalisation policy.
We cannot build our economy if we continue to rely on cheap imports because such economic activities only enhance the fortunes of countries from where we import most of the items.
The DAILY GRAPHIC, therefore, urges the government to heed the call by cotton companies in the Northern Region for more support for the industry as it has the potential to generate foreign exchange and provide job opportunities for the large number of unemployed youth in the area.
“We are ready and committed to producing cotton once again to feed the local textile industries and for export if the needed support is offered to us by the government to revamp the cotton sector,” the President of the Cotton Producers Association, Alhaji Ibrahim Abdulai Mobila, said in Tamale.
The revival of the cotton business can lead to the creation of jobs, reduction in poverty and improvement in the living standards of the farmers.
The DAILY GRAPHIC believes that cotton farmers must be supported to expand their operations to help in the revamping of the textile industry.
The rejuvenation of the local economy in the northern part of the country through support for cotton and other farmers must be a priority of the government.
There is no way our farmers can increase production if they continue to borrow at commercial rates to undertake agricultural ventures.
The DAILY GRAPHIC, therefore, calls on the government as a matter of urgency to put in place special credit facilities at concessionary rates solely for those who want to undertake agriculture or raw material production to feed our local industries such as the textile factories.