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Stringent measures are necessary to address Ghana’s annual post-harvest losses valued at $1.9 billion, an agribusiness expert, Daniel Fahene Acquaye, has stated.
“Interestingly, despite losing huge sums of money to post-harvest losses, we also import about $2 billion worth of food into the country per annum to make up for the losses,” he said.
Mr Acquaye expressed worry over why the country always projected its post-harvest losses annually without concrete measures to address the situation, saying, “We urgently need an agribusiness policy and measures to remedy the post-harvest losses”.
Mr Acquaye, also the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Agri-Impact Limited, was speaking during the first regional agribusiness dialogue at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Kumasi last Friday.
It was on the theme: "Resetting agribusiness for inclusive and sustainable industrial growth".
The dialogue, which was jointly organised by the Ministry of Trade, Agribusiness and Industry and Agri-Impact Limited, an agribusiness firm, was one in a series to be held across the country to develop the National Agribusiness Policy.
It followed the national agribusiness dialogue held in July this year, with President John Dramani Mahama in attendance.
The objectives of the regional engagement were to validate the emerging framework and its strategic pillars, propose other strategic thematic pillars not included, and further identify regional agribusiness priorities and investment opportunities aligned with Ghana’s industrial transformation agenda, among others.
For instance, Mr Acquaye said the value of food and non-alcoholic beverages consumed in the Ashanti Region alone annually was $1.2 billion, meaning the food that went to waste annually in Ghana could feed the entire region for one-and-a-half years.
He said the current trend should not be glorified in the country’s quest to achieve food sufficiency and security, adding that “this is something that calls for measures to address the nation’s post-harvest losses”.
Mr Acquaye acknowledged that the post-harvest losses were due to the absence of storage infrastructure in farming communities, and stressed that since some of the produce did not get to the market, rural communities needed storage facilities to store such produce.
“There is the need for an active fund to enable the government to have a sustainable inflow of resources to invest in the needed infrastructure to address the country’s post-harvest losses,” he stated.
In a speech delivered on his behalf, the Deputy Minister of Trade, Agribusiness and Industry, Sampson Ahi, said the consultation marked a crucial moment towards transforming Ghana’s agribusiness sector to unlock the vast potential of transitioning the country from an agrarian economy to an industrialised one.
Over the years, he said, the agribusiness sector had operated in a fragmented manner with no single policy guiding it, adding, however, that “the ministry is developing a comprehensive policy to govern and improve agribusinesses in Ghana”.
“This policy will focus on value chains and high-quality raw material production to support agro-processing industries,” he said.
He stated further that the policy’s significance lay in its emphasis on the entire value chain while ensuring sustainability, productivity and job creation.
While recognising the vast benefits of the agribusiness sector to the economy, Mr Ahi called on stakeholders to work together to maximise the agribusiness sector’s potential to achieve sustainable growth and development.
The Ashanti, Bono, Bono East and Ahafo Regional Chairman of the Association of Ghana Industries, Kwasi Nyamekye, said captains of industry were only interested in a large market for their products.
“We are not begging the government for anything or a favour.
All that we are looking for is a deliberate measure that would enable us to have a ready market for our products to grow the local economy, he said.”
Citing the poultry sector, Mr Nyamekye said many poultry enterprises were out of business due to the lack of market.
He therefore urged the government to create an enabling environment for businesses to thrive.
