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Ghana to the increase international
market share in horticulture
Ho, Jan. 20, GNA - The government is adopting an integrated
approach to raise the cultivation of horticultural products
for the booming international market.
The programme would include farmers' access to technology,
improved seeds and also enhance the capacity of the industry
to conform to international standards and regulations.
Mr Ernest Debrah, the Minister of Food and Agriculture, said
this in a speech read for him at the launch of the Export
Marketing and Quality Awareness Project (EMQAP) in Ho on
Friday.
He said post harvest infrastructure, including those related
to export processes, was also being improved.
Mr Debrah said under the Horticulture Exports Industry
Initiative (HEII), which is one of the new initiatives of
the Agriculture Services Sub sector Investment Project (AgSSIP),
shed nine at the Tema port was being refurbished into an
ultra modern fruit terminal complete with cold storage
facilities.
He said that facility, which was about 80 percent complete,
would be commissioned by March.
Mr Debrah said over 3 million MD2 pineapple planting
materials worth over a million dollars had been distributed
to over 70 small-scale farmer groups to go into rapid
pineapple sucker multiplication to help exporters shift to
the preferred MD2 variant.
He said a 400,000-dollar support for 2,000 mango out-growers
in the Northern Region to crop 2,000 acres was also going
on.
The Minister said under the 28.65 million dollar EMQAP
project to be implemented in the country's horticultural
belt of the Greater-Accra, Central, Eastern and Volta
regions, one demonstration farm will be established in each
implementing region to train farmers in the application of
Good Agricultural Practices (GAP).
He said 407 kilometers of feeder roads in the horticultural
belt would be rehabilitated to make them motorable all year
round.
Mr Mawuli Agboka, EMQAP Project Coordinator, said the
project, with 90 per cent funding by the African Development
Bank and 10 per cent by government of Ghana, was to address
specific constraints which currently limit the development
of the horticultural sector.
He said strategies include the establishment of a database
on market information and consumer preferences for
dissemination to producers and exporters.
Mr Agboka said total land areas in the four regions covered
under the project was 53,000 square kilometers, representing
22 per cent of total land area of Ghana.
He said about 13,502 rural households or 81,012 people would
benefit directly from the project.
GNA
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