Exploring Israel’s agric expertise for the benefit of Ghana

Selorm Yaw Dovia Opinion Apr - 29 - 2015 , 10:43

Ghana has always been touted as an agricultural country with farmers receiving due recognition, especially after the National Farmers Day was instituted. In spite of this, however, the country faces a major problem with food self- sufficiency due to the inability of many farmers to preserve their yield.

Such is the situation that farmers have had to make do with any price offered for their produce by unscrupulous market queens and middlemen. It is, therefore, incumbent that every effort is made to assist the Ghanaian farmer to learn the techniques that assist him avoid post harvest losses. If the right measures are put in place, it will sustain their interest in the sector and encourage the youth to take to agriculture.

According to the 2014 Oxford Business Group report, Ghana’s economic foundation is based on agriculture, which employs more than half of the population and is a key focus for the country’s inclusive economic development agenda.

The report indicated that Ghana had 13.6 million hectares of agricultural land, with cocoa and maize accounting for the largest areas planted, with 1.6 and 1 million hectares, respectively.

Yet, as the industrial and services sectors have strengthened in recent years, agriculture’s contribution to overall GDP had steadily declined, falling from 32 per cent in 2009 to 22 per cent in 2013.

The report further indicated that the agric sector remained underdeveloped, with the majority of rural farmers (accounting for some 90 per cent of all farming employment) lacking the proper techniques, inputs, financing and infrastructure such as transport networks and irrigation and storage systems.

Farming unattractive

New policy reforms, however, such as seed variation control and biosafety regulations, aim to both enhance yield quality and reduce waste.This notwithstanding, one of the most difficult problems facing the country has to do with the calibre of people attracted to the agriculture sector.

Majority of farmers in Ghana are either old or young persons in the countryside who think they have lost out in education to become a lawyers, doctors, accountants, nurses, journalists, engineer among others. I have had many classmates who offered agriculture and other agriculture related courses at the university, but are now bankers or businessmen and women running between China and Ghana.

Agriculture, to many young people is unattractive This is due to lack of market, post harvest losses, lack of available tools and the subsistence way of farming or perhaps the educational system, where weeding the school farm was palpable punishments for wayward students.

Israel experience

During a recent visit to Israel, it was made manifest that there were moves to ensure that Ghana benefited from Israel as a regional leader in the areas of trade, finance, science and technology. Israel has a lot of expertise in agriculture which any country seeking to improve its agricultural development must take a cur from.

Ghana’s envoy to Israel, Mr Ernest S. Lomotey told the Daily Graphic: “One key area that the mission focuses on with the potential of further strengthening bilateral relations between the two countries is agriculture.”

Coming face to face with Israel’s success story; with the world's most developed irrigation methods, with the highest reused waste water rate and the most advanced agriculture technologies was remarkable and worth emulating.

Since Israel's early days, the country's agriculture sector had been forced to provide its citizenry with advanced solutions. Israel, one of the world's most arid regions, pioneered and led the concepts of drip irrigation, recycling, organic farming, use of less chemical in pest control, purifying and reuse of waste water for agriculture purposes.

Based on its accumulated experience, Israel is poised to play a major role in supplying the world with cutting-edge agriculture solutions which Ghana must tap into if we want to lead.

Agritech 2015

With the arable lands in Ghana, there is the need for farmers to start seeing themselves as business people. That is why it is gratifying to note that about 60 companies from agriculture related farmer groups from Ghana are participating in the 19th International Agricultural Technology Exhibition in Israel, with a focus on post harvest food loses. The exhibition, which took off yesterday (April 28) and ends on Apri 30, would also explore technology, experience and network. It is dubbed “Agritech 2015”.

From the interaction with Ghana’s Mission in Tel Aviv, it is working towards establishing a convergence between Israel’s accomplishments in agriculture and Ghana’s desire to expand productivity in this sector.

The ambassador stressed that enhancing the performance of the agricultural sector remained a great priority in Ghana. “In this regard, the Mission is collaborating with Israeli institutions and facilitates for officials from Ghana to participate in events such as Agritech Fairs and Exhibitions, which are organised by the Ministry of Agriculture of Israel every four years,” he said.

In his view, Israel’s agro technology sector was characterised by intensive research and development of innovative systems to overcome the scarcity of the country’s natural resources.

Far-reaching changes

For his part, the General Manager of Agritech, Mr Dani Meiri, said the world agreed that everyone was witnessing far-reaching changes in the agriculture industry due to the influences of nature such as climatic conditions and amount of natural resources available and or economic influences in the form of developing world's needs.

All these conditions, he said, would continue to exert their influence not only on crop production, but also on the increasingly valuable harvest. The situation, he said, urges the world as a global unit to invest in the post-harvest systems, which were quite diverse, depending on place, crops or products and the different stages of activity involved.

On agritech 2015, he said “we wish to create in our own humble way a platform to present some of the post harvest methods and processes.

Agric our strength

It is important, therefore, that a country with its strength in agriculture, blessed with arable lands and endless river bodies would take advantage of such exhibitions and enable farmers groups to participate to bring back home the knowledge and technology acquired.

Currently in the Shama District of the Western Region, the Inland Valley Rice Project, close the Pra River has been polluted to satisfy the selfish interests of illegal gold miners. This project could have helped the farmers benefit from irrigation with water from the Pra.

We continue to import water, foodstuff, vegetables and others which could have been produced locally from our neighbours.

Countries in Asia picked tilapia fingerlings and oil palm seedlings from Ghana, but today, these countries are exporting these products to Ghana.

Smart agric team

With the expertise to export knowledge, it would be important for the government to put a team of smart people together to visit such fairs and exhibitions not for participating sake, but for result oriented purposes. Where it is necessary for the government to support to bring some of these technologies down to Ghana, it should be done with alacrity it deserve.