By Godwin Tyonongu
A new hub for the sale of grains, especially beans, has opened at Auta-Balefi, situated on Abuja-Keffi expressway.
Commissioned recently by the Beans Dealers Association (BDA), Auta-Balefi in Karu local government area, the grains market, aka “bags market” is centrally located between Nasarawa and FCT close to the highway.
When Blueprint visited the market square on Monday, the market day set aside mainly for buying and selling of beings, there were truck-load of beans being off-loaded mostly by peasant farmers who came travel led from a village called Ankoma in the Nasarawa state.
“In Nasarawa, there’s so much demand on grains; like the beans is brought by traders and taken to Ibadan and Lagos. We are like middle men, serving both the farmers and the buyers who normally come from places like Lagos”, a trader told Blueprint.
Chairman of the BDA, Philemon Ayuba, who spoke through his scribe, David Yakubu Katar, said: “Every market day, at least more than 3000 bags enter the market were selling in Adamawa state before we decided to relocate to this place; It was difficult for us to carry products to Ibadan from there and we decided to open our own here.
“The price per bag is N13, 500 a small one; the demand for the commodity has risen and its possible the price will rise also as it is, the quantity of beans produced in the catchment area has also increased.”
He appealed to youths of the catchment area to take advantage of the new market to better their lot.
