Ghana will be able to increase its local production in some staple foods for sustainable growth and export through a conscious approach to tackling its over-dependence on foreign food products.
According to President of Ghana Chamber of Agribusiness, Anthony Morisson, many are the untapped opportunities within the agric value chain thereby questioning the country’s self -sufficiency in terms of local consumption.
Mr. Morrison was speaking on the on-air series of the Citi Business Festival on the topic, “The opportunities in the agribusiness value chain”, on Thursday, June 18, 2020.
He said an assessment of the COVID-19 pandemic on agriculture requires the adoption of a local content policy on food production amid the advanced technology needed to revamp economic activities within the agriculture space, restrict market access to local farmers and make Ghana’s food crops competitive on the international markets.
Giving highlights of opportunities Ghana is yet to explore fully to achieve food sufficiency, Mr. Morrison named the following four cultivation areas as the pivots by which the country’s domestic production, export agenda and reduction in importation revolve.
Rice: The rice value chain is very critical in that as a country we spend over two billion cedis on rice importation. Thailand, Vietnam, India and Pakistan are no longer exporting to any other country. All the ones they are sending to us now are the ones they have stored for the past ten years or more. So some of the rice we even eat here are very old and we are talking about how to eat nutritious foods. It costs just a little over GHS 1500 to produce one acre of rice; and you will make not less than GHS 3000 within four months. We eat a lot of rice and rice is the second mist consumed food apart from maize. Statistics show that consumption of maize is 38 percent but rice is 28 percent in that order.
Cassava: We import huge quantities of wheat for our cake, bread and other things. Cassava flour can also do the same if we domesticate or bring in the local content into our diet. Cassava is the biggest producer of ethanol. So cassava is the gold of Africa.
Orange flesh sweet potato: This has been with us for many years and its good for our climate zone. We have our old sweet potato which has a lot of fibre but we can have a way to take that out for us to use for any other thing including pharmaceutical products like Ibrufen. We can even get ethanol from it.
Mangoes: Many people are not looking at this green gold. It is the king of all fruits. People enjoy the mango fruit juice. We have a lot of varieties and we export some of them. We have some as dried mango, fresh cuts and fruit juice. It takes three and a half years to grow. If the government gives the private sector some tax exemptions, we will see mire mangoes being produced. So the government should cine up with unique local content policies that invite the private sector to invest heavily in agric to take care of the importation bill.
Yam: Yam is a very unique product. We enjoy our yam fufu, yam chips with pork, yam flour etc, Yam these days has come as a unique area because it is gradually attracting markets. It is well chopped, packaged and exported. Yam is exported in its raw state to South Africa, America, UK, Germany, US and many other places but a lot of people don’t look at that. One acre of yam will roughly give you 15,000 acres.
The 2020 edition of the Citi Business Festival has a line-up of radio and TV discussions.
It is featuring virtual business fora that would be live on Citi TV.
The month-long festival of business events and on-air activities provides inspiration, business ideas, and information for persons who are starting, building or growing their businesses.
This year’s edition of the Citi Business Festival is brought to you by Citi FM and Absa bank. It is supported by GIPC and Ghana’s comprehensive business news website, citibusinessnews.com.