Agric sector deepens pursuit of processing, value addition                                      

By Wisdom JONNY-NUEKPE

Government is actively linking farmers to agro-industrial investments to stabilise prices, create jobs and accelerate Ghana’s journey toward food security, processing and value addition, President John Mahama has said.

Delivering his State of the Nation Address to the 9th Parliament last Friday, President Mahama said a major highlight of this effort is a €154million Italy-Ghana irrigated commercial farming project to establish a 10,000-hectare irrigated model farm to produce rice, maize, soya and tomatoes.

This intervention, according to the president, is strategically designed to fast-track progress toward food security, ensure a reliable supply of raw materials for agro-processing and reduce the country’s dependence on food imports.

Region-wide agro industrialisation

This year, government has planned very elaborate initiatives under the value-addition and agro-industrialisation drive – including the quest to establish rice processing facilities in Upper East Region, poultry feed production facilities in Ashanti Region and cashew and onion processing facilities in Bono East Region.

Already, a 40-tonne-per-day soya processing plant is being established in northern Ghana to support soybean farmers and reduce feed costs.

The shea industry is also being revived through secured export contracts and measures to protect local raw material supplies.

However, government’s biggest strategy for reducing Ghana’s over                                US$400million annual poultry import bill is to implement a comprehensive poultry farm-to-table project through production and processing.

President Mahama said 50 anchor and commercial farmers have already been empowered to produce four million birds.

Also, some 500 SMEs are being supported to producing three million birds through the small-scale (Nkoko Nketenkete) backyard poultry programme, with emphasis on women and youth.

The programme’s target is to reach 60,000 households. Even before its official launch, figures from the Agriculture Ministry indicated that 720,000 birds were distributed during the pilot phase to 13,000 farmers in 12 districts.

A poultry processing factory is currently under construction in Bechem to support expected production growth.

Ghana’s food processing sector

Food processing in Ghana is a vital, expanding sector focused on adding value to agricultural products like cocoa, cassava, oil palm, shea butter, canned fruit and livestock, including poultry.

Dominated by small-to-medium scale enterprises, the industry is transitioning toward industrialisation, though over 80 percent of processed foods are still imported.

Despite a strong government-supported push to reduce reliance on imports and add value to raw materials locally, sector hurdles including low productivity of local raw materials, high operational costs and inadequate infrastructure still exist.

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