US$10bn required to transform agriculture value chain - Agribusiness Ghana

The country needs an investment of US$10 billion to completely transform the entire agriculture value chain over the next ten years, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) for Chamber of Agribusiness Ghana, Anthony Serlom Morrison, has said.

The investment, which he says could be raised from both the public and private sector, will effectively address major bottlenecks including access to finance, infrastructure, improved seedlings and equipment and value addition, among others which continue to hinder the development of the entire value chain.

“In general, we at the Chamber of Agribusiness estimate that Ghana’s agricultural sector and agribusiness requires US$10 billion direct investment from both the private and public sector for the next 10 years for us to be able to mitigate some of the challenges we have,” he said.

He told the B&FT that lack of access to modern equipment, research into improved seedlings, fertilizer, credit and storage facilities, as well as poor agronomic practices, limited feed production and land ownership, are among the challenges faced by industry players.

Explaining further, he said the poultry industry, for instance, lacks advanced equipment like mobile processors which have the capacity to dress or process up to 10,000 birds a week.

“The major challenge to accessing chicken on our market is as a result of lack of processors. Most farmers are not able to buy their own processors to process broiler birds. If there is a cold chain company which has a mobile processor, it will help. The point here is that the mobile processor can dress about 10,000 birds in a week.

“To employ people to process chicken, is not only expensive but they cannot do 100 in a day. Meanwhile you are paying workers at the expense of your little margin. That is why the cost of locally produced frozen chicken is expensive on the market compared to imported chicken,” he noted.