Agency for Health and Food Security advocates for training of agric value chain actors

The Agency for Health and Food Security (AHEFS), says agricultural value chain actors and implementing partners should be properly trained and their responsibilities clearly defined to prevent role-conflicts and ensure proper coordination of various sectors.

Mr Kwaku Asante, Executive Director of AHEFS, underscored the need for the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) to collaborate with the Ministry of Trade and Industry to enhance the vegetable value chain and to enhance the market for local farmers.

He said there is also the need for the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development and the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) to put in place appropriate modalities for assisting farmers within geographical locations to connect local market.

Mr Asante was speaking at a National Dialogue on Vegetable Value Chain Policy, hosted by AHEFS in collaboration with the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC) in Accra.

The vegetable market alone is growing at more than 10 per cent per annum and the potential value for export is estimated at $250 million.

Despite the economic prospects of the sector, the overall vegetable production in Ghana is still relatively low in comparison with other sub-Saharan African countries.

The event was held under the theme: Systems Approach to Vegetable Value Chain Policy, Pandemic Response and Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Agreement”.

Mr Asante said as a country hosting AfCFTA would mean that Ghana should be up when it comes to trade in Africa, establish institutions to guard such projects, otherwise other countries would overtake the market and local industries are likely to collapse.

“We must have beneficial local policies that are functional enough to guarantee the benefits of small scale industries”, he added.

Dr Kodjo Esseim Mensah-Abrampah, Director-General of NDPC, said looking at the President’s vision as expressed in the Coordinated Programme for Economic and Social Development Policy, one of the key things it highlighted was modernising agriculture.

He said one of the things captured under modernising agriculture was the strategic point which was named in the document; turning agriculture to a demand-driven process instead of a supply focused process.

He said there is the need for the nation's farmers to be informed of the marketing opportunities that exist for their products so that they would be encouraged to produce more.

Madam Esther Agyemang, Desk Officer in–charge of vegetables at MoFA, said with the current development of COVID-19 there is an urgent call to boost the immune system such that people would become strong, and vegetable is a key crop that can enhance and boost the immune system.

She called on the public to become vegetable advocates; adding that “one of the key areas we need to advocate for is vegetable research in terms of seeds, at the moment most of the seeds are being imported”.

Mr Alfred Antwi Annor, Team Leader of Trade Export at the Ministry of Trade and Industry, said having a dialogue to formulate proposed policies was important, particularly looking at the quality aspect and standards of vegetables being exported to foreign markets.

He said the policy should look at both ends; the supply-side constraints as well as the quality and standards that the produce should meet at the external market, so there would be an increase in vegetable exports.

Professor Asare Bediako, Dean, School of Agriculture of the University of Cape Coast, raised concerns about how some farmers were abusing pesticides; they are not using the right dosage for vegetables.

He underscored the need to educate farmers on the application of pesticides, stating that, food security is not just about having access to food, but the safety of the food.

AHEFS is a Ghana-based civil society organisation with a mission of facilitating and promoting sustainable development in Ghana and in Africa.