Ghana, Netherlands to explore Agribusiness potential

The governments of Ghana and the Netherlands have expressed their commitments to explore the agriculture potential of the Northern Sector of the country in order to boost agribusiness and increase non-traditional exports.

“The Northern Sector has huge economic potential for commercial agriculture especially vegetable production for export and the government is seeking strategic partnership, through Public Private Partnership, to develop the agribusiness potentials of these regions, the Minister of Trade and Industry said.

According to Hon. Haruna Iddrisu, government policy, in this regard, is to effectively push for the progressive improvement of more inclusive models that bring real economic benefits locally and accord some degree of shared power to the smallholder farmers.

He said this will involve providing strong safeguards and remedies for local people especially with regard to security of local land rights; increasing the set of choices open to agribusiness and smallholders and providing more detailed regulation framework for investors to provide support to smallholders within the agribusiness sector.

In a discussion with the Netherlands’ Ambassador to Ghana, Hans Doctor in Accra, the Trade and Industry Minister indicated that plans were far advanced to improve upon the irrigation facilities in the Northern Sector of the country to enhance commercial farming and requested the Netherlands financial and technical assistance in this area.

The parties re-echoed the importance of Trade and Investments to any economy and called for greater cooperation to promote the existing bilateral Trade and Investments between the two countries.

This new collaboration between Ghana and the Netherlands has become necessary with the shift from aid to investment.

On his part, the Netherlands’ Ambassador, Hans Doctor said the Netherlands will collaborate with Ghana to boost commercial farming in the Northern sector through smallholder farming models.

“The Netherlands government will continue to support Ghana’s drive towards private sector development, trade facilitation and promotion,” the Ambassador said.