Post-harvest losses: Govt urged to provide alternative funding solutions
The Executive Director of Agrisolve, Elorm Goh, has urged the government to provide alternative funding solutions to address post-harvest-loss in the agricultural sector.
Advertisement
Speaking as a panellist at a stakeholder breakfast meeting held in Accra yesterday, she explained that without the right financing mechanism, farmers would not be able to acquire the required tools and equipment to manage post-harvest lost.
Citing the use of equipment such as threshers, which are even more expensive than tractors used in the soybean industry, she said young people would not be able to afford these equipment to tackle post-harvest loss if they do not get access to alternative funding.
“Africa has a youthful population and advantage and so we need to be intentional about inculcation of young people into agriculture.
How are young people able to find these things without alternative finding solutions to enable them to have access to some of these expensive equipment,” she said at the meeting, which was in partnership with the Graphic Communications Group Ltd (GCGL).
Meeting
The meeting was on the theme, “Transforming Agriculture Productivity in Ghana: Enhancing Incomes of Smallholder Farmers through Reduction in Post-Harvest Losses.
“The meeting provided a platform for stakeholders to discuss ways to strengthen Ghana's agricultural sector and foster youth empowerment.
Ms. Goh further stressed the need for an equity in the pricing of goods adding, “If farmers are not paid what they are due, they will never see that alleviation of poverty we seek to achieve”.
For his part, the Director of Business Development at the National Service Scheme (NSS) announced that his outfit had secured about 50,000 hectares of land in the Kumawu area as part of efforts to develop the country's agricultural sector to create more job opportunities for young people.
In addition to that, he said the NSS would also train 45,000 young people across the rice, soya, tomatoes and poultry value chains with the goal of providing 90,000 jobs across these agricultural value chains.
These developments, he said were due to the fact that the NSS has recognized that Ghana has strong theoretical agricultural knowledge, but lacks practical training. To address this, the organization has deployed over 60,000 people with agricultural skills this year and created a dedicated training enclave in the Ashanti region.
"You may give them all the inputs, but no post-harvest training, and everything comes at a loss," the representative cautioned.
"By providing comprehensive training, we intend to identify a 'National best farmers under 30' in the next two to three years,” he said.
Innovation
The World Food Programme's Country Director, Barbara Clemens, called on the government and key stakeholders to adopt innovative approaches and policies that looked beyond just agricultural production.
She emphasized the need to address the entire agriculture value chain, including aspects such as seed production, irrigation, fertilization, growing, transport, and storage in order to reduce post-harvest losses.
The WFP Country Director, who stressed the importance of prioritizing the purchasing of Ghanaian products within Ghana over foreign imports, added that establishing business development offices and aggressively marketing Ghanaian agricultural products beyond the country's borders could help attract youth into the agricultural sector.
As part of measures to help support smallholder farmers in the country, she announced that her outfit was collaborating with the MasterCard Foundation on a project that aims to reach 100,000 smallholder farmers in the country.