Tarongo-Awaa (U/E), Jan 31, GNA – The government has been urged to develop policy guidelines to support the straw basket weaving industry in the Upper East Region to increase the incomes of weavers and reduce poverty and vulnerabilities.
Players in the sector said apart from the foreign exchange the sector accrued to the government through exports of the hand-woven baskets, basket weaving was a big employment avenue for the people in Northern Ghana and had the potential to bridge the gap between the south and the north.
They, therefore, called on the government to invest and boost the sector by constructing weaving and training centres to produce quality baskets to meet international markets demands.
They also want the government to support farmers in northern Ghana to venture into the cultivation of the straw, the ‘vetiver grass or elephant grass,’ the main raw material for the basket production, to reduce the cost of importation and increase productivity.
The stakeholders made the appeal at Zorko-Tarongo-Awaa in the Bongo District of the Upper East Region at an awards ceremony organised by the Blessing Baskets Project Ghana, a straw basket export organisation.
The award scheme supported by Ten by Three, an international organisation, was meant to appreciate the efforts and contribution of Tarongo-Awaa Noyine Basket Weaving Group and its leader Ms Anafo Atanga who wove 542 baskets in 2021 and was adjudged the Ghana Weaver Artisan Entrepreneur of the year.
Ms Atanga was given a cheque of GHC1,583.00 while 18 sheep, valued at GHC7,500.00, were presented to some selected hardworking artisans of the group.
Mr Abdulai Asuah, Executive Director, Blessing Baskets Project Ghana, said due to the erratic rainfall caused by climate change and the effects of pandemics such as COVID-19, agriculture was no longer reliable and basket weaving had become the backbone of the local economy in the Upper East Region, employing thousands of vulnerable people, especially women.
He said the organisation exported about 20,000 pieces of baskets, equivalent to 40-foot seater container, every 45 days to foreign countries and called on the government through the Ministry of Trade and Industry and the Ghana Export Promotion Authority, to invest in the sector, to serve as a tool to reduce poverty in the region.
“Currently, we have to travel to the South to buy the straw and they are becoming expensive and so the government needs to take interest in the basket weaving industry and encourage farmers in the region to grow the straw because it is the only business in Northern Ghana that can produce sustainable income to households,” he said.
Ms Atanga expressed gratitude to Blessing Baskets Project Ghana and its partners for their support over the years and noted that it had become the lifeline of many families in the area.
She advised young unemployed graduates to venture into the basket weaving industry, which would fetch them a sustainable income.
GNA