The Volta Region, like every other region in Ghana, has a plethora of market centers where farmers, traders, businessmen, and women may sell their wares and agricultural products to make a livelihood.
In the region, there are significant large marketplaces dedicated primarily to the trade of certain items.
Dzemeni in the South Dayi District and Kpando Torkor markets, for example, are known as large fish markets where sellers offer a variety of fresh, smoked, dried, and fried fish taken primarily from the Volta Lake.
Fish such as gbovilolo, tuna, and mackerel abound in the Anloga market. So are shallots and onions. Farmers sell vegetables and food crops in the Kpeve (South Dayi), Kpedze (Ho West), and Denu (Ketu South) marketplaces.
Dzolo Gbogame, Dzolopuita (Ho West), and Dzodze are among Dzolo regions that produce palm oil (Ketu North).
Furthermore, while seeking for gari, markets in Mafi Kumase (Central Tongu), Ehi, and Dzodze Penyi (Ketu-North) spring to mind, while the Aveyime, Afife, and Weta regions are designated rice centers.
Central Market in Ho
The Ho Central Market, also known as 'Ho Asigame,' is one of the region's most important commercial centers (Ho big market). Many villages in the Volta Region rely on this market for their livelihood.
The following market day occurs every fourth day after a market day. If the market day falls on a Monday, for example, the next market day is Friday. It feeds farmers and fishermen from Adidome, Tsito-Awudome, Kpedze, Abutia, Kete Krachi, Dambai, and the towns around them, including Hohoe, Keta, and Aflao.
Corn, beans, fish, charcoal, and clothes, among other items, are sold in the market in several places in the Eastern Region and even in neighboring Togo.
According to legend, the market began in the Ho Civic Centre before being relocated to its current location in the early 1970s. Every day was a market day before that.
The main attraction
On market days, the Ho market becomes a center of attraction, as it becomes densely populated with food and people from all walks of life, with several displays of food items in large quantities and at very affordable prices, including vegetables, fish, food stuffs, palm oil, corn dough, groundnut paste, yam, cloths, beads, and charcoal, among others.
The cheapest commodities on offer in the market are garden eggs, palm nuts, okra, groundnuts, pepper, corn, cassava, onions, oil palm, cocoyam, and plantain.
Market days are extremely busy for the capital city, and they are usually the only time it sees sluggish and heavy traffic.