Accra, Ghana, March 26, 2019//-Ghana’s agricultural sector generates a quarter of the country’s gross national product and thus secures the staple food supply as well as the country’s export.
Incidentally, the country suffers many challenges regarding the cultivation and sale of agricultural products.
Small businesses lack the inputs, finance and marketing opportunities paving the way for adverse effect on the competitiveness of the businesses, which produce nearly eighty per cent of all agricultural products.
Ghana’s vegetable sector is no exception to this sad situation. A few years back it suffered a ban into European Union (EU) markets.
To address the issue it is of note that the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH has been commissioned by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) with funding from the EU to assist the Ghanaian Government in improving agricultural value chains on the long term.
Since 2017, more than 25,000 small farmers, both male and female, have participated in training to increase their yields and harvest better products. Additionally, 5,500 farmers have signed purchase agreements with agricultural businesses that guarantees secure sales projections and facilitate access to operating materials.
Naturally, the cocoa subsector has spurred the export performance of the agricultural sector. A number of reasons in recent years have somehow shifted attention to other productions; especially horticulture.
The local climatic conditions are ideal for the production of tropical fruits and vegetables. Secondly, the country is in close proximity to many European countries whiles the new middle class generation with a heightened health awareness of consuming vegetables, coupled with the rise of the supermarket industry, is fueling the gradual growth in the domestic market for vegetables.
A study conducted in 2016 by Ghana Institute of Horticulturalists (GhIH) and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations revealed a huge production and yield gap in both fruits and vegetables in Ghana.
The survey revealed that the average population still does not consume the minimum daily requirement of 400g per day of fruit and vegetables necessary for good health.
The general trend was that with advancing age, the consumption of fruits and vegetables increases. However, children are at risk and should be provided with more fruit and vegetables for adequate nutritional status and alleviate micronutrient deficiencies.
Stakeholders say vegetable cultivation provides an excellent source of employment for both rural and urban dwellers as it is grown in many rural areas as well as in the outskirts of towns and cities to be supplied fresh to the urban markets and for exports.
The industry has been found to have three distinct components – Commercial/market gardening, medium scale production for contractors/middlemen and small-scale domestic / backyard gardening. Most of the farmlands in the country’s capital, Accra, are used for commercial cultivation of vegetables (tomatoes, okro, cabbage, lettuce) and maize.
Production of fresh vegetables takes place all around the country and is strongly related to the specific weather conditions and market windows.
In addition, irrigated agriculture is on the increase leading to new production areas around the Volta River and Lake Volta, as well as specific irrigated areas in and around Accra.
Vegetables most commonly grown in Ghana are: tomato, onion, shallots, okra, egg plant, local spinach, Indian or Gambian spinach, sweet and chilli pepper, and hot pepper.
These vegetables find a ready market, not only in the cities but also in the rural areas. The exotic or European types of vegetable are grown mostly for the foreign population in the country.
The yields of exotic vegetables such as cauliflower and carrots are often low and the quality is sometimes poor. Lettuce is becoming increasingly popular in the cities and does extremely well almost throughout the year while cucumber is gaining in popularity.
According to experts moving from “business as usual” to more commercial vegetable production requires serious efforts. Typically, the vegetable chains are characterised by: low availability and knowledge of improved inputs; limited agronomic skills and practices; poor food safety for both the domestic and export market; limited postharvest management systems; and inadequate linkages between input suppliers producers and buyers.
To them postharvest management, trade and logistics are serious impediments in the industry pointing out that much of the vegetable produced is lost after harvest, either in storage, during transport or at the market.
The lack of cold storage and the packaging material (large 60 kg wooden crates) contribute to high postharvest losses, up to 50% by some estimates.
The strengthening of the supply chain between vegetable farmers and end-buyers is required to incentivise farmers to invest in and adopt improved production technologies (seed and inputs).
The present situation – a combination of coordination failures and infrastructural weaknesses along the value chain reduces the farmers’ incentive to invest in improved technologies.
With the Planting for Food and Jobs policy industry watchers say the time has come for the government to really support vegetable farmers with all the necessary tools and agro-chemicals to improve planting, post harvest management as well as packaging in line with high professional standards.
To them, “Vegetables are now cash crops which when invested into, will generate a lot of income to improve Ghana’s economy,”
Sight should not be lost to the fact that the economic and social development of the rural sector is a key requisite for the achievement of food security for all.
Poverty, hunger and malnutrition are some of the principal causes of increasing migration from rural to urban areas. Poverty eradication is essential to broaden access to food. The rural areas are generally poorly equipped in terms of technical and financial resources and educational infrastructure.
In these areas, lack of income opportunities, failure to harvest crops, inadequate maintenance of production systems, poor distribution networks, limited access to public services and the substandard quality of such services are fundamental aspects that need to be considered with regard to rural food security.
Expanding production in low-income food-deficit regions is frequently one of the primary means of increasing the availability of food and income for people living in poverty.
This needs to be complemented by generation of employment and income which will increase effective demand in these areas, in turn stimulating production, economic diversification and rural development and therefore long-term food security.
As former President John Agyekum Kufuor puts it, “Giving the difficult situation we find ourselves in, in terms of development, government policy should be comprehensive and should be in an integrated way. Policy should help move people from scratching little piece of ground into proper, modern, entrepreneurial agriculture”.
By Oppong Baah, African Eye Report
