In partnership with Nebraska Strategies, Agrihouse Foundation was honored to welcome Senator Julie Slama and colleagues, Senator Andrew La Grone and Former Senator Ken Schilz, to Ghana yesterday.
The trio are on a working visit, which forms part of their collective developmental focus and commitment, to identify and establish a pathway for collaborations.
Whiles in the country, the U.S Senators are expected to meet the Minister of Food and Agriculture and other related stakeholders in the agric sector, to discuss investments, training and knowledge sharing exchange programs, between Ghana and the State of Nebraska, with a major focus on Agriculture (Agro Processing, Value Addition, Livestock), energy, land, and natural resource sectors.
“Nebraska State is known as an agriculture state where we have some wonderful women farmers, which can be done here in Ghana. It is an opportunity for both young men and women to come to embrace,” Senator Slama noted in an interview upon arrival.
Ms. Slama is the youngest member of the Nebraska legislature. She added, Ghana has the potential to produce enough produce for its citizenry when technology and value addition is included to the country’s its agricultural efforts. Touching on the significant roles of women to the sector, said women are in the best position to be agriculture giants when they are given all the necessary support. She said women can also be wonderful agricultural leaders as well.
“We are interested in working on the agriculture side, to have conversations about maize production, soya production, and portray production. We will formalize the relationship so we can start moving forward and bring the players together so they can make things work better. Ghana and Nebraska have a lot in common. We are looking forward to bringing everybody together. There is a great opportunity in the agric sector and we will like to create a lot of expertise that will benefit both sides and build a lot of relationships to make life better for people in Ghana and Nebraska”, Former Senator, Ken Schilz explained.
On his part, Senator Andrew La Grone noted that Agriculture is so vibrant, which has a huge opportunity to explore in order to bridge food security. “In Nebraska, we grow a lot of crops so if we bring that value-added technology to Ghana, it will yield a lot of positive results which will help Ghana and worldwide in this current economic crisis.”
“Agriculture is more important now. I’m honoured to be here because I think so many issues in to talk about, that will impact the next generation of Ghanaians and Nebraskans. I’m looking forward to it from a positive perspective, I see decades of partnership and mutual agreements between Nebraska and Ghana. The greatest opportunity for both Nebraska and Ghana is the value-added agriculture, improving over yields and investing in technology, improving the lives of small and medium-sized farmers as we do in Nebraska”, he stated.
The deputy Minister of Food and Agriculture, Hon. Yaw Frimpong Addo who was delighted about their presence said it is a win for both Ghana and Nebraska. He said, “Nebraska is known as an agricultural state in the US and they have really advanced in agriculture. And as Ghana is also trying to develop agriculture to the modern standard their presence is a kind of collaborative visit, we want to make sure that we grow our agriculture, especially in value addition.”
“We suffer a lot of post-harvest losses in the country and if they have that technology then why not, we should take advantage of it. It is going to be a win-win situation because our people will go over there to get the requisite training and they are advanced in the use of technology in agriculture which is what we are lacking a bit behind. We want to mechanism our agriculture in some districts. The more we add value to the things we produce here the more we increase the shelf life of our products,” he buttressed his point.
