The home-grown Green Label scheme will also check and ensure that fruits and vegetables produced locally are handled hygienically and could be traced from their point of origin till they get into the hands of consumers.

The initiative, which is to be operated through a private-public partnership programme and guided by the board, will ensure that there are incentives for fruit and vegetable producers who adopt improved safety and quality control measures in meeting accepted standards.

The nine-member advisory board is chaired, in the interim, by the Chief Executive Officer of Quinn Organics, Mr Samuel Nii Quarcoo.

Quinn Organics produces organic fruits, herbs and juices for both local and export markets.

Recall

Ghana lost about US$30 million in revenue between 2014 and 2017 as a result of a ban on its vegetable exports to the European Union (EU) market.

The ban followed the country’s non-complaince with EU standards on the export of vegetables.

To address the challenge, the government has adopted the Green Label initiative and made it a prerequisite for the export of agricultural produce, beginning from January 1, 2018.

Health consciousness

Inaugurating the board in Accra on Thursday, a Deputy Minister of Food and Agriculture (MoFA), Mr George Oduro, said the certification of fruits and vegetables produced for the domestic market was a change needed to enable the horticultural industry to realise its full potential.

He said the foundation was expected to redefine the landscape of the fruit and vegetable sector of the economy to make sure that the crops produced were safe and of high quality and that their production for the local market could be sustained.

He observed that the consumption of fruits and vegetables in the country was low, compared to the World Health Organisation’s (WHO’s) recommended daily intake of 400 grammes per day for the attainment of good health and well-being.

“For instance, the consumption of fruits and vegetables among males and females in Ghana is less than 100 grammes per person per day, with men and the youth consuming far less, compared to women and children,” the deputy minister said.

 He said improving the consumption of vegetables and fruits in the country had become critical, considering that consumers were now interested in the way food was produced, processed and marketed.

“They see that vegetables are watered with sewage water and crops sprayed with agrochemicals and sold on the bare ground in the market and are beginning to ask questions.

“Consumers have come face to face with threats to their lives with regard to the way fruits and vegetables are handled and are beginning to exercise their right of choice which means that local producers will have to improve their production methods,” Mr Oduro said.

Reward best practices

Mr Oduro, however, acknowledged the fact that in spite of the challenges the sector faced, there were many farmers who were acting responsibly but suffered the same fate as those who practised unsafe methods of farming.

“The good farmers ought to be differentiated from the bad ones and rewarded for complying with good agricultural practices,” he added

Mr Oduro hinted that a team of auditors from the EU would visit Ghana in the coming weeks to assess the country’s export certification systems, evaluate them and make recommendations to the EU Plant and Safety Committee on Ghana’s level of compliance with the International Standard for Phytosanitary Measures (ISPM) before the ban on the export of five vegetables from Ghana could be lifted.

For his part, Mr Quarcoo said the inauguration of the board constituted a great milestone in the efforts at ensuring that fruits and vegetables consumed locally were safe and of high quality.

He pledged that the board would enforce monitoring and evaluation across the value chain and called for support from the government and the development partners.