Some market vendors have disregarded the efforts made by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) in connection with the opening of the Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) pilot market on the ministry's forecourt to provide Ghanaians with access to affordable food items to protect them from rising food prices in the nation.

The market women claim that sales at the PFJ market are not unusual.

The women claimed that the costs at PFJ marketplaces are generally comparable to those in local traditional markets across the nation.

Discussing the PFJ market selling at affordable prices while the traditional markets sell at exorbitant prices, Madam Christiana Ayisi, the secretary to the Dome New Market Women's Association in the Greater Accra Region, contested that prices of food items such as yam and plantain are low in the traditional markets.

She said this while speaking in an interview with Nana Otu Darko, the sit-in host of the Ghana Yensom morning show on Accra 100.5 FM on Tuesday, November 15, 2022.

According to her, there are food items sold for GHS5 and GHS10 among others in the traditional markets.

She argued that the prices at the PFJ market are not novel.

She said what would be novel is if a bunch of plantain is sold for as low as GHS5.

“But on the same platform, some items are sold for GHS25 which is also on the high side."

“As stakeholders in the food supply chain, we are concerned with seeing the ministry breaking even after selling the food items at the prices the items are being offered to the members of the public."

“We want the ministry to come out boldly and tell us they made some profits in the face of the rising cost of fuel in the country,” she challenged.

“As women, we just don’t get up and increase prices,” she stressed and added that prices are determined by the cost of fuel.

She explained that many of these rural areas have bad roads so the middlemen have to hire the services of people to carry the items to the next available area where the roads are fairly good before they can be transported to the nearest market areas.

The food items are transported from the rural areas to the urban areas for the consuming public at the cost of the middlemen in the food supply chain in the country, she elaborated.

She dared the minister to sack all the market women if he was able to make some profits on the sale of the food items sold at the PFJ market.

According to her, the PFJ market is a ploy to antagonise the public against market women but asserted it will be fruitless.