Agrofood fair for West Africa opens
The Dutch government has rolled out a programme to help individual Ghanaians and companies to invest in the production of high quality vegetables and horticultural products to feed the growing local and international markets.
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Although Ghana imports about a $1 billion worth of food products, including vegetables from The Netherlands, the Dutch government, which has had long standing ties with Ghana, rather sees great potential in producing such food items locally.
It has, therefore, already rolled out the ‘Ghana Veg’ programme aimed at promoting the horticultural sector, with a fund and technical advice to stimulate Ghanaian businesses to invest in the agrofood value chain, covering improved seedling, solutions for land preparation, harvesting and processing, as well as packaging.
The Ambassador of The Netherlands to Ghana, Mr Hans Docter, disclosed this to the Daily Graphic in an exclusive interview shortly after the opening of a three-day international trade exhibition and conference on agrofood, printing and packaging.
He said The Netherlands currently exported low value onions to the country but its aim was to “rather sell the technology, and give advice to Ghanaian businesses as we do globally.
He explained that the programme would be extended to cocoa, palm oil, fish and poultry where the development partner saw a lot of potential.
Twin exhibitions
The second edition of agrofood and plastprintpack West Africa which opened at the Accra International Conference Centre will end tomorrow. The twin exhibition and conferences on agrofood, as well as printing, plastic packaging and food safety, has attracted exhibitors from European and West African countries.
The exhibitor countries are The Netherlands, Austria, France, Germany, Ghana, India, Italy, Ivory Coast, Korea, Lebanon, Switzerland and Turkey, which are expected to present their latest innovations to highly professional visitors from Ghana and other ECOWAS countries such as Nigeria, Senegal and La Cote d’Ivoire.
The two-in-one fair, which is fast becoming the leading international trade show in West Africa for the thematic sector, is organised by the German trade show specialist, Fairtrade, and supported by the Delegation of German Industry and Commerce (AHK) in Ghana and Advantage Austria, the Austrian private sector promotion chamber.
The Dutch Ambassador explained that the growth in shopping malls and urban population required more vegetables, fish and other food products and “this indicates the potential for local production for domestic as well as the regional and international markets.”
He, however, explained that the support would not follow a blanket disbursement as was in the past for development financing, but would be based on bankable business plans to ensure impact and sustainability.
Trade minister
The Director of Logistics and Value Chain at the Ministry of Trade and Industry, Papa Kow Bartels, who represented the Minister, Dr Ekwow Spio-Garbrah,commended the organisers of the event as they were helping to shore up the competitive edge of local companies.
Mr Bartels said Africa was also becoming the focal point for having the potential to feed the rest of the world and that tied in with the objective of Ghana to graduate from subsistence farming to commercial agriculture and value chain maximisation.
The Ghana Commercial Agricultural Programme (GCAP) being done in partnership with the World Bank and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) was, therefore, an effort to improve the investment climate for agriculture by creating public, private partnerships and smallholder farmer linkages.
The Chief Executive Officer of Fairtrade, Mr Martin Marz, said the maiden fair last year set a high benchmark which informed the second edition, which had unfortunately been battered by the outbreak of Ebola in parts of West Africa.