Accra, Ghana, August 17, 2018//-Organisers of the eighth edition of the annual Pre-harvest Agribusiness Exhibition & Conference announced that over 2000 participants are expected to attend the event in Tamale, the Northern Regional capital from 3rd to 5th October, 2018.
These participants including farmers, traders, commodity brokers, input companies, packaging and processing companies, government officials, and civil society organisations will discuss issues relating to the country’s agribusiness sector at Aliu Mahama Sports Stadium in Tamale.
The conference which is being organised by Agrihouse Foundation in partnership with the USAID, Ministry of Food and Agriculture, World Food Programme , among others, seeks to accelerate the transformation of agribusiness in Northern, Upper and Upper West regions in the country.
Major activities lined-up for the event include exhibitions, dialogue and networking sessions, training, field demonstrations and farm tours, according to the organisers.
Briefing journalists on the upcoming event in Accra today, USAID Chief of Party of the Ghana Agricultural Development and Value Chain Enhancement (ADVANCE) project, Dr. Emmanuel Dormond explained: “The Pre-harvest event promotes business partnerships among value chain actors, especially farmers, buyers, processors, transporters, input dealers, equipment dealers, financial institutions, telecom companies and policymakers”.
The event also aims at getting the agribusiness sector to influence transformation, with the heightened focus on public-private partnerships, investment opportunities and creating an action-driven blueprint for an increasingly sustainable agric movement, he added.
“With the government’s Planning for Food and Jobs programme, strong drive by agro-processors to source raw materials locally, a growing band of agribusiness entrepreneurs and lessons from development partner interventions, there is a bright future for the sector”, Dr Dormond told journalists.
Danquah Addo-Yobo, Managing Director of Yara Ghana, a subsidiary of Yara International ASA, a leading global firm specialising in agric products and environmental protection agents said his outfit would use its expertise to ensure that the event’s field demonstrations were successful.
“As a crop nutrition company, we have held several demonstrations across the northern part of the country. So, we will bring our expertise to bear on the upcoming event”, Mr Addo-Yobo.
He was quick to add that through their interventions, farmers in that part of the country were able to increase their maize yields from the national average of two bags per hectare to 6 bags per hectare.
For Madam Ruth Adashie, Communications Manager of Kosmos Energy Ghana, a leading oil exploration firm, said the company wanted to live a lasting impact in the country’s agric sector hence their decision to invest in it.
To this she explained the company introduced the Kosmos Innovation Center (KIC) in 2016 to help Ghana build a brighter future by tackling some of the country’s key challenges.
The KIC begins its work by choosing an area of focus from one of Ghana’s many different sectors. In its first year, the KIC is turning its attention to agriculture – the largest sector in Ghana’s economy – where it will pursue and nurture the development of market-based solutions that address various development challenges, Madam Adashie noted.
Also touching on his company’s contributions to the sector, Haidar Malhas, Irrigation Services Manager at Interplast Ghana, West Africa’s leading producer of plastic pipe system, noted: “We are providing products and services to farmers to maximise food production” in the country.
On his part, Ibrahim Mubarak, a senior official of KL International Company Ghana, a local tricycle assembling and transportation firm, said the company would use the event as a platform to display their tricycles to the people in the area.
The three-day conference is being sponsored by Yara Ghana, Kosmos Energy Ghana, Mel Consult, among others.
By Masahudu Ankiilu Kunateh, African Eye Report
Email: mk68008@gmail.com
