The 12th Annual Pre-harvest Agribusiness Press Conference was held at the forecourts of Agrihouse Foundation, Dzorwulu today at exactly 10:45am.
This year’s edition, dubbed ‘Connecting the Unconnected: The Farmer-the Market and the buyer’ had astute value chain stakeholders, Yara Ghana, GIZ MOAP, Demeter, the Chief Director of the Northern Regional Coordinating Council and lead farmers addressing the media with concerns and appreciation of the market linkage event.
Over the past 12 years, the pre-harvest agribusiness event has served as the leading market linkage programme for farmers and has sought to address the challenges of these smallholder farmers since its inception in 2010.
The Executive Director, Miss Alberta Nana Akyaa Akosa, speaking at the media launch, noted the introduction of 4(four) different event sessions which kickstarts on Tuesday, October 25, 2022, to Thursday, October 27, 2022, will help improve market matchmaking
between farmers and buyers in the Northern region.
These sessions include the Exhibitions, Farmer to Buyer Matchmaking, Commodity Breakout Sessions and Farmer to Farmer Apprenticeship programme which she believes will improve upon their approach to connect farmers to buyers when they have harvested their produce.
The founder highlighted the impact of the pre-harvest made on farmers in 2021 and mentioned that the concept of the sessions is to strengthen the primary objective of the 12th Annual Pre-harvest Agribusiness event.
She Stated ‘…Basically, we are hoping to have this year, 4(four) different sessions. We are having our exhibitions which forms a key component of it. Last year, we had about 148 companies right from our equipment companies, farmer groups, seed companies, tractors, marketing companies who took stance. Our farmers were lucky, and we are happy to see some of our farmer groups. They were excited about it because it was a direct connectivity, direct linkages. We are actually building on our theme for this year around what we hope to achieve; by connecting the unconnected, the farmer, the market and the buyer. So, we are basically strengthening it with the sessions that we are having this year. So, beyond the exhibitions, we are having farmer to buyer sessions which also forms a key component of the pre-harvest event.
And as I stated before, earlier on, it’s an avenue to connect farmers to markets, that’s even the primary objective…’
The audio below is a full statement of the Executive Director, Miss Alberta Nana Akyaa Akosa at the 12th annual pre-harvest agribusiness press launch
