IT is an undeniable fact that agricultural is the backbone of the nation’s economy. According to the Ghana Statistical Service, agriculture contributed 34.1 per cent to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2009.
More than 50 per cent of the country’s labour force was also estimated to be in the agricultural sector, as indicated by the 2000 Population and Housing Census.
In spite of this, many farmers in Ghana remain poor and, generally, agriculture appears to be unattractive to many people.
One of the reasons identified as contributing to this poverty among farmers is the absence of a functioning value chain system, which guarantees them of a ready market for their produce.
In their publication – “A Handbook for Value Chain Research” (2000) – Raphael Kaplinsky and Mike Morris, describe value chains as “the full range of activities which are required to bring a product or service from conception, through the different phases of production to delivery to the final consumer and final disposal after use.”
Thus, from the input dealer to the farmer, the middleman (if any), the marketer, the buyer and the consumer, there must be some form of understanding between the actors and networking that facilitates the entire process.
At every stage, premium is placed on value-addition and market demand for the product. The absence of these linkages has therefore been identified as the bane of Ghana’s agriculture. Farmers produce anything and look for buyers, marketers struggle to get the right varieties and industry is starved of the needed raw materials.
It is to reverse this trend, that in 2009, the Northern Rural Growth Programme (NRGP) introduced a unique forum – known as the Value Chain Practitioners Forum – for actors in the agric sector to meet and discuss ways of operating a well-linked and effective commodity value chains system in Ghana.
The second edition of this forum took place in Tamale at the GILBT confab hall over the weekend and was attended by a wide array of practitioners, including district directors of agric, consultants, farmers, representatives of non-governmental organisations, credit institutions and input dealers.
It was held on the theme: “Professionalizing value-chain practice in Ghana” and the participants discussed ways of putting in place an institutional arrangement, such as an association, to facilitate the smooth operation of the value-chains in Ghana.
Speakers at the forum argued that such an arrangement would improve collaboration among the actors in the chain, ensure that each actor complements the efforts of the other and enable the replication of best practices.
Other speakers raised issues with the funding of the association, its operation and membership arrangement.
To streamline all these issues, the participants constituted a 19-member core working group with the mandate of identifying the modalities of establishing such a body.
“This working group would meet from time to time and access the progress of institutionalising the value-chains system in the country,” the NRGP’s value chains specialists, Mr Pascal Dere told the press.
He said for now, the group would be hosted by the NRGP whiles efforts are made to establish a more sustainable and independent institutional arrangement.
The National Co-ordinator of the NRGP, Mr Roy Ayariga told the Daily Graphic in an interview that the forum was necessary because it sought to bring together all the actors onto a common platform to share ideas on the concept of commodity value-chains and to strategise on the way forward.
He noted that agric commodity value chains, though relatively new in Ghana, was the best approach to promoting agri-business and increasing rural incomes.
“Hither to, we were focusing on only production, whiles relegating value addition and marketing, but production becomes a waste if there is no available market and fair prices for the goods,” he mentioned.
“With the commodity value chains, all actors in the value chains act in unison and with certainty. Whiles input dealers and financial institutions support the farmer to produce the crop variety and quality that is in demand, the marketers and buyers remain assured of getting their desired produce,” he added.
Mr Ayariga stated that promoting commodity value chains in Ghana would certainly be the way to improve the incomes of smallholder farmers because it would move them beyond subsistence and guarantee them of a ready market and fair prices for their produce.
He said the NRGP was championing the adoption of the commodity value chains in Ghana because it believes strongly in partnership as being the key way to enhancing agric in the country.
Aside the formation of the association, the participants also brainstormed on innovative ways of value chain financing and marketing of agricultural produce and manufactured products.
“We have introduced a system, where we design an electronic data-base of various participants in the value-chain and the linkage activities among the various players is anchored through mobile telephony,” the Country Representative of the International Centre for Soil Fertility (IFDC), Dr Kofi Debrah stated in an interview.
“Many of our partners, including the farmers, have cell phones and therefore can transform these phones into business tools, rather than for social communication,” he further stated.
Mr Debrah mentioned the ‘mFarms’ platform, which he described as an information exchange tool, a decision support tool and a planning, production and marketing tool.
With the enthusiasm with which the NRGP is engineering the process, it is hoped that an effective commodity value chains system would soon be borne out of these deliberations.
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