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A tough nut to crack Agriculture is Ghana's future. It supplies 40 per cent of the gross domestic product but at present it is operating at only 20 per cent of its potential. This is the sector, the Government and aid donors agree, that has to be a major focus of investment. Despite the advances of the past 15 years, not enough fertile land is being cultivated. There are two million small-scale farms, but many operate at not much more than subsistence level. Towns are surrounded by farms that produce too little to feed the inhabitants. The scale of agriculture remains so minimal that the average smallholder cannot afford to invest in his produce. He also has distribution problems, with insufficient feeder roads from the hinterland to the main trunk roads to enable him to get to market. Some progress has been made in recent years. According to the World Bank, there has been a substantial and sustained resurgence of food crop production by smallholder farms and food production kept well ahead of population growth from 1994-97. Between 1991 and 1997 the export of pineapples increased by more than 200 per cent. Cassava output has quadrupled and maize has tripled. Nevertheless, says the World Bank, the performance of the sector as a whole represents little more than a recovery to the output levels of 1970. The Ministry of Food and Agriculture has set an annual growth rate target of 5-6 per cent and its policy is to aim at improving access to markets, to technology and to financial services. Towns
are surrounded by farms that There have been some striking successes. At one of its oil palm plantations, Unilever has encouraged people living just outside the plantation to cultivate their own palm trees. The company has supplied pesticides, fertilisers and expertise and assisted in the harvesting of the palm oil, which is then processed at the plant. The company then pays the individuals for the palm oil produced, after deducting the cost of their assistance. This scheme has been so profitable for the locals that there is now a waiting list to join. It is successful because the local people have not had to give up tenure of their land but they are all growing a single crop - operating, in effect, as a collective farm. Another successful enterprise has been the development of cashew nut exports. A group of ambitious Ghanaian businessmen saw that the nuts were growing wild and worked with local communities to commercialise a potential cash crop that was flourishing all around them. The businessmen created the Cashew and Spices Products Company, or Cashpro, to export the nuts. Production has grown from 13 metric tonnes in 1990 to more than 400 tonnes and Ato Ahwoi, Cashpro's chief executive and a former Minister of Trade, says he expects Ghana to be exporting some 10,000 tons within two years. Cashpro has diversified into cocoa, soya beans and maize and is considering other products, including coffee, alligator pepper (like black pepper) and sunflower oil. In a similar initiative an Anglo-Ghanaian company, Blue Skies, is taking tropical fruits from Ghana, processing them and flying them to Britain for sale in supermarkets within 24 hours. Pineapples, passion fruit, mango and papaya are harvested, packed - individually or as fruit salads - in plastic packaging and displayed with an eight-day shelf life for the convenience shopping market in Britain. Gary Webb, Blue Skies operations manager, says that because the UK is only six hours' flying time away, it is able to take pineapples of eating quality and deliver them for consumption rather than picking them before they have matured. He also says that Blue Skies is providing organically-grown pineapples for Sainsbury's. |