Only up to 74 per cent of the country’s post-harvest infrastructure is utilised, leaving about 30 per cent of crops to be handled outside such facilities, a new study has revealed.
The “Inventory of Postharvest Infrastructure in Ghana”, which assessed the post-harvest infrastructure across the country and determined the absent infrastructure needs, found out that a total of 2,446 of such facilities used to store and process crops, livestock and fish, out of warehouses for cocoa storage, dominated with a total of 1,726 facilities.
The study, which was carried out by the Agriculture and Agribusiness Unit of the Real Sector Division of the Ministry of Finance, in collaboration with a similar unit within the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA), was sponsored by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
Under the Feed the Future initiative of the US Government, the USAID is supporting the Real Sector Division of MoFA to conduct a number of studies to inform policies initiated by the government.
While there is a popular refrain in the country that the post-harvest infrastructure in the country was inadequate, the new study indicates that those available were underutilised.
This came to light when results of two studies carried out by the unit were presented to participants in a dissemination workshop in Accra on August, 9. The other study was on “Ageing Farmers and Youth in Agriculture in Ghana.”
“The average capacity utilisation of all the facilities was between 50 per cent and 74 per cent, indicating that the full potential of post-harvest facilities is yet to be met. The efficiency of facility use is thus questioned,” the findings of the study indicated.
Deputy Finance Minister
A Deputy Minister of Finance, Mrs Mona Helen Quartey, opened the workshop and underscored the importance of agriculture in the economy, as it contributes 21 per cent to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the country, employing about 44 per cent of the labour force. In 2014, agriculture contributed about US$2.64 billion in foreign exchange earnings.
Mrs Quartey said the decline in the share of agric in GDP was as a result of the rapid growth in the services and industry sectors, but also due to inadequate post-harvest infrastructure and low productivity resulting from the ageing population in agriculture.
“This is why the Ministry and its collaborators thought it wise to launch an investigation into the state of post-harvest infrastructure and the age structure of farmers. The overall objective of this dissemination workshop is to bring the findings of these research papers to light and seek the attention needed to mitigate the challenges,” the deputy finance minister said.
She expressed the government’s commitment to continue to support agriculture with effective policies, promulgation of laws and real investments.
Key findings and recommendations – Post-harvest
The inventory was limited to commercial facilities being warehouses with capacities above 50 tonnes, processing facilities able to produce two tonnes per day and cold stores of five tonnes’ capacity.
The post-harvest infrastructure covered agricultural commodities such as food crops, cocoa beans and cash crops.
Besides cocoa warehouses which dominated the infrastructure, the study also found that 425 processing facilities; 27 horticultural pack houses; 180 commercial cold storage facilities for meat and fish, as well as 88 abattoirs, were identified.
Youth in agric
When it came to Ageing Farmers and Youth in Agriculture in Ghana, the research found that the average age of farmers was 55 years, as against the country’s average life expectancy of 56 years.
This ageing population, engaged in the agricultural sector, is deemed a critical challenge which if not checked in time could entirely crumble the sector.
“An ageing farmer population should be a wake-up call for policy makers as inaction risks “increasing food insecurity, rural poverty, burgeoning urban slums and economic decline”, the study indicated.
It also indicated that as a job preference, the youth were more interested in artisanship than agriculture since there was a longer gestation period for agricultural production, while artisanship was perceived to yield income faster.
One of the recommendations cutting across both studies is the need for a financial policy in which the government could encourage financial institutions to design innovative products to ensure adequate working capital for post-harvest infrastructure management, as well as the sustainability of youth in agric programmes.
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