“This is something we are planning to do in the long term,” Kwame Okyere, the  Marketing Officer Yara Ghana told the Times Business in an interview yesterday ahead of this year’s National Food and Agriculture (FAGRO) show.

This year’s FAGRO show slated for Tamale in the Northern Region from September 26 to 30 is on the theme, ‘Creating jobs in agriculture, Northern Region In-Focus,’ is under the auspices of Barclays Bank Ghana, Dizengoff Ghana and Yara Ghana.

It is a platform to bring policy makers and stakeholders in the agricultural sector to discuss measures and strategies to promote the agriculture sector.

Yara Ghana, the lead sponsor of this year’s FAGRO show, has been sponsoring the programme since it started in 2008.

Mr Okyere said it had become necessary to establish a plant to produce the company’s products locally to avoid the huge cost incur in importing the company’s products from Europe and other parts of the world to Ghana.

He said the dollar-cedi exchange rate volatility remained a big challenge for the company.

The Marketing Officer said, in the interim Yara Ghana was constructing a terminal at Tema to receive and store the company’s products.

Mr Okyere said the construction of the terminal had become necessary in view of the growing demand for the company’s plant solutions.

“Last year we sold thirty-million tonnes of our plant nutrition solutions and we expect to sell the same amount this year,” he said, adding that the company had won a bid to supply 20,000 metric tons of Yara’s products to the government this year.

Mr. Okyere touching on the FAGRO show, his outfit was the brain behind the programme and had been supporting it since it started in 2008.

He said Yara Ghana was excited about the theme of the year’s programme, which centered on job creation.

Mr Okyere said theme was in line with Yara Ghana’s objective of creating employment opportunities for students in the various agricultural institutions in the country.

By Kingsley Asare