The Ministry of Food and Agriculture has initiated moves to look for external markets for maize produce locked up in the Northern region. The move is a short term measure adopted by the government to prevent the produce from rotting away due to the unavailability of markets up North as well as the inability of the National Buffer Stock Company to buy since their warehouses are full. The Northern regional best maize farmer for 2010 Naa Alhassan Abdullai in an interview with Joy News, appealed to the government to obtain a market for the maize to be sold. He indicated that most farmers were discouraged this year. He added that about five hundred bags of maize belonging to him had not been sold. But the Deputy Minister for Agriculture, Dr. Ahmed Yakubu Alhassan explained that his Ministry was collaborating with some agencies to work out what volume can be exported to create room for more maize to be stocked or moped out from the farmers. He added that arrangements were being made in collaboration with the World Food Program, to export the surplus produce to other countries in order to create room for the National Buffer Stock Company to mop up some more maize into their warehouse.