The Minister of Food and Agriculture, Hon. Eric Opoku has said that Ghana will no longer be content with exporting raw materials to the international market, rather add value to its raw materials for export.
He said this during the maiden edition of the Ghana Tree Crops Investment Summit and Exhibition with the theme; Sustainable Growth Through Tree Crops Investment: Resetting and Building Ghana’s Green Economy at Accra International Conference Centre, Accra.
Given his speech at the summit he underscored Ghana’s agriculture transformation shifting decisively from conversation to execution, “today marks a decisive shift in Ghana’s agricultural transformation. Not merely a shift in conversation, but a shift in execution”.
He reiterated that as a minister his mandate is to ensure that vision of Tree Crops translates into practical results on farms, in processing facilities, and in export markets.
He acknowledged the private sector for sustaining tree crop sub-sector over the years, yet without adequate coordination or regulatory structure, though production grew, yet value addition remained limited, standards were jagged, and the sector lacked the coherence required to attract large-scale investment.
Bridging this gap, through the Tree Crops Development Authority, he said the ministry is building an ecosystem fastened in reliable planting materials, strengthened extension delivery, improved productivity, traceability systems, processing expansion and enforceable
regulatory standards.
It is therefore the duty of the government to provide a conducive atmosphere within which all actors can confidently discharge their duties.
According to him, the future of the tree crop sector lies firmly in value addition. “Cashew must be processed locally before export. Shea must move beyond raw nut export into refined butter and cosmetic-grade derivatives. Coconut must expand into oil, fibre, beverages and industrial inputs. Rubber must feed downstream manufacturing, and mango must scale into export-grade processed products. Oil palm must deepen into integrated agro-industrial development”, he listed.
To achieve this, he explained the Ministry is facilitating access to suitable land banks in ecologically appropriate zones, strengthening extension services tailored specifically to tree crop agronomy, promoting nucleus-outgrower schemes that guarantee consistent raw material supply to processors, and aligning regulatory institutions such as the Ghana Standards Authority and the Food and Drugs Authority with international export requirements.
To women and the youth, Minister mentioned that women are predominant actors in the shea butter industry that serves as the major economic support of their livelihoods in the rural communities, therefore, the idea of the ministry is to link the women-led businesses to processing, export and value addition opportunities.
He called on the investors to take the opportunity of the stable democratic governance with structured opportunities to invest in relation to expansion in processing capacity across multiple crops.
