Thursday, July 10, 2014
Call for Ghana to improve oil palm production
Call for Ghana to improve oil palm production
By Ama Amankwah Baafi and Prosper M. Dagba
THE Minister of State in charge of Finance and Allied Institutions, Mr Fiifi Kwetey, has called for an awakening to the huge potential of oil palm production in the country.
He said currently we are prodcuing an estimated 243, 852 tonnes of palm oil and that falls short of the estimated demand of 350,000 tonnes.
Mr Kwetey said considering the shortfall in local production coupled with the 850,000 tonnes of the product demanded in the ECOWAS sub-region alone, urgent steps were required to increase production locally to take full advantage of the opportunities.
He was speaking at the launch of an initiative, Incubator and Access to Finance (SAIF), a component of the Sustainable West Africa Palm Oil Programme (SWAPP), by Solidaridad West Africa.
The SWAPP’s goal is to increase the productivity and profitability of small to medium scale enterprises (SME), farms and mills in the oil palm sector, starting in Ghana and to be replicated in other West African countries.
The SAIF is a component of SWAPP that seeks to provide incubator support and access to risk capital to help grow businesses and accelerate the development of the oil palm sector in West Africa.
The Dutch government is providing about €12 million Euros for the SWAPP, focusing mainly in Ghana and with subsequent interventions in Cote d’Ivoire and Nigeria within the next two years.
“There is vast resource of arable land and huge young population and so it is important for us to encourage particularly our younger generation to enter into oil palm investment. Oil palm remains an untapped opportunity for our country and investors around the world. Agribusiness can help solve the problem of unemployment,” he said.
Oil palm production
Unlike Malaysian farmers who produce the world’s largest tonnage of oil palm, many oil palm farmers in the country lack knowledge of best practices and this has resulted in poor returns and limited investment, thereby impacting on the overall economy. Also, these affect the ability of those in the sector to access the needed funds.
Against this background, Mr Kwetey lauded the initiative by Solidaridad, saying that “through the intervention of SWAPP, highest yield of about six tonnes per annum has improved to 14 tonnes. We are grateful to the Dutch government for its immense support to the agriculture sector and to fund such a programme to change the face of agriculture, particularly oil palm.”
The SAIF
This will deplore a system that will bring together a wide range of stakeholders to develop the oil palm sector. It will also support the growth of business entrepreneurs in the oil palm sector by providing them with technical support, business development services and access to finance.
The Managing Director of Solidaridad, Mr Isaac Gyamfi, said Solidaridad worked on creating sustainable supply chains from the producer to the consumer and enabled producers in developing countries to get a better price for better products. It is also helping to preserve people's environment.
“Solidaridad is convinced that the agricultural sector can produce more efficiently so that it will be able to feed the world population in 2050, as well as supply energy and plastic to the industry. That is why Solidaridad is investing in enterprising farmers in developing countries and putting emphasis on the improvement of their land use so that production can increase while at the same time help decrease the harm to people and the environment,” he said.GB
Number crunch
305,758 hectares
Ghana has a total of 305,758 hectares of oil palm plantation with more than 80 per cent of this being cultivated by private small-scale farmers.
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