As Ghana targets sustainable economic growth, value addition to raw agricultural products remains inevitable as it has potential to create massive jobs and export earnings.
Many stakeholders of the sector have shared their insight to guide government on priotising agro-processing in the short to medium term of the reset agenda.
Among them is a renowned agricultural scientist, Professor Roger Kanton, who has called on the government to urgently revive dormant food processing factories across the country as part of efforts to strengthen Ghana’s agribusiness sector and reduce post-harvest losses.
“Revive food processing facilities such as the sugar factory, tomato factory, rice factories, and meat factories to add value to our farm produce and reduce waste,” he said at the Citi Business Forum on the theme Harnessing Agribusiness for Economic Growth: Expanding Ghana’s Agribusiness Frontiers.
He stressed the need for practical steps to add value to local produce through sustainable agro-industrial development while questioning the commitment to industrialisation, noting that past efforts such as One-District-One-Factory (1D1F) and One-Village-One-Factory have not translated into the revitalisation of once-functional state-established factories.
“How do you build local industries when you are killing people who put their money in factories that are processing food in the country?” he asked.
“You talk about One-District-One-Factory, or One-Village-One-Factory, but you can’t even maintain the ones that were established in the past, especially by Kwame Nkrumah. None is operating. Why is that the case?”
Prof. Kanton cited several examples, including the Komenda Sugar Factory, rice mills in Bawku and Tamale, and cotton processing facilities, all of which he said are lying dormant despite their strategic importance to the agriculture value chain.
However, he is hopeful that the government’s proposed Resetting Agenda will include a comprehensive overhaul of the agriculture sector, particularly in restoring the country’s agro-industrial base.
“There is more to reset in the agric sector, and I am hoping that under the government’s Resetting Agenda, they will look at that,” he added.
On her part, a Food Scientist and Impact Food Hub CEO, Dr Mavis Owureku-Asare, called for a more practical, community-driven approach to agro-processing in Ghana, stressing that existing models have largely failed to yield the desired outcomes, emphasising that, Ghana has both the capacity and quality to meet international production standards.
She argued that, too much focus has been placed on increasing production without equal attention to processing and value addition.
She noted that while policies like One District, One Factory (1D1F) and other interventions have attempted to establish large-scale processing facilities in various communities, many of these factories have become defunct or ineffective.
Dr. Owureku-Asare proposed a shift towards small-scale, community-based solutions such as appropriate technology units, mini-processing facilities, and incubation hubs, which she believes can have a real, localised impact.
“A lot of focus has been on production; let’s produce, let’s produce, let’s produce, but what happens to what you produce? Processing is now being placed at the forefront of the discussion. When we talk about processing, what are we really looking at? A lot of processing facilities have become defunct. There’s been a lot of focus on whether it is through the 1D1F policy or some other interventions that have focused more on setting up huge factories in communities to process. However, has that been successful? In my opinion, it hasn’t.
“If we want to talk processing, we should re-think and have a holistic approach where we are putting farmers, people in the value chain who can, if they are given the right incentives, technical expertise, access to funding, can be able to do the little in their commmunities like setting up appropriate tech, small scale-processing unit, incubation hubs, that can really be impactful.
“We have to really zoom in and find really practical ways of helping with the value addition that we are talking about or helping with processing which have a direct impact on the economy rather than relying on some models that may not have worked, are not working, and then living under the pretense that we are doing something in that space,” she said.
By Adnan Adams Mohammed
