[ad_1]
Business News for Wednesday, November 18, 2020
Source: GNA
2020-11-18
Coffee grains
The government has introduced the Coffee Development Program to support the growth of the industry.
The program, spearheaded by the Ghana Cocoa Board, has already led to doubling production to more than 12,000 tonnes per year with yields of around 1.4 tonnes per hectare.
Owusu Afriyie Akoto, Minister of Food and Agriculture, made this known at the 60th General Assembly of the Inter-African Coffee Organization (IACO) held virtually in Accra on Tuesday.
He said that in order to consolidate profits and propel the coffee sector to a cocoa-like status in Ghana, COCOBOD was in the process of creating a division.
The division’s mandate, among others, would be to intensify support to the coffee sector through research, extension support, and regulation of marketing and processing activities.
He said that Ghana processed and consumed more than 90 percent of its coffee production annually.
He said: “The Ghanaian coffee industry, like many others in Africa, is undergoing a revolution. A revolution underlined by the desire to move from the colonial legacy to African autonomy. “
He said that coffee was one of the main cash crops promoted by colonial masters, so after independence, the main market for coffee remained outside the mainland.
The minister, who is the chairman of IACO, said African producers had continued to target Europe and North America as the key market for the export of coffee beans.
He said that under this arrangement, the fortunes of hardworking producers were tied to a volatile market, supported by the economic conditions in those economies.
“One of the valuable lessons from this pandemic is the domestication of critical commodity value chains,” he said.
He said that the increase in continental consumption and the increase in the level of domestic value added of these commodities was long overdue.
He said the slow pace of industrialization was not keeping up with the needs of the young and vibrant African population.
“This situation has resulted in huge imports of finished products from other parts of the world,” he added.
He said the government is committed to intensifying the effective participation of the private sector in the coffee value chain.
He said increasing urbanization provided an available market for coffee growers in the country, and said that a sizable, urbanized population with rising incomes presented opportunities for the African private sector to increase the added value of products on the continent.
Akoto said the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) creates an opportunity for intra-African trade to open markets for agricultural products.
Dr. Frederick Kawuma, IACO Secretary General, said they were collaborating with the African Union to boost coffee production on the continent.
He said that Africa was the world’s largest producer of cash crops, yet they were earning sadly less income.
Dr. Kawuma said they were moving forward by calling for amendments to international product prices so that farmers could earn more.
He said that local industries had suffered a decline in production.
However, they were interventions implemented at the regional and local level to increase production through research and development, seedling distribution, and disease control.
Send your news to
and features for
. Chat with us through WhatsApp at +233 55 2699 625.
