Participants at the Swedru Conversation. INSET: Dr. Roger Kanton<\/strong><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Former Research Scientist with the Savannah Agriculture Research Institute (SARI), Dr. Roger Kanton has lamented the increasing importation of onions, tomatoes, and other perishable crops from neighboring Niger and Burkina Faso to augment what is produced locally in the country.<\/p>\n
Data from the Ministry of Trade and Industries pegs Ghana\u2019s import from Burkina alone at U$$400 million worth of tomatoes with annual market demand of 800,000Mt of which the country produces between 300,000 and 400,000 Mt.<\/p>\n
In 2021,\u00a0Ghana\u00a0imported $33.1m worth of in\u00a0onions, becoming the world\u2019s 42nd largest importer. In the same year,\u00a0onions were Ghana\u2019s 132nd most imported product.<\/p>\n
Ghana\u00a0imports\u00a0onions\u00a0primarily from:\u00a0Niger\u00a0($21.7M), China\u00a0($8.83M),\u00a0Netherlands\u00a0($928k),\u00a0Morocco\u00a0($695k), and\u00a0Nigeria\u00a0($550k).<\/p>\n
Speaking at the annual thought leadership event by the Alumni Association of Sweden Senior High School (SWESCO) dubbed the Swedru Conversation under the theme, \u201cFeeding Our As A Nation,\u201d Dr. Kanton lamented the country\u2019s inability to feed itself aside from having large tracks of arable lands and enormous water bodies but are seriously underutilized.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have the capacity to produce all the vegetable crops such as tomatoes, onion, okro, chili pepper cabbages, watermelon, and sweet potatoes for the international market. Unfortunately, the African governments including Ghana have paid lip services to support hardworking farmers to produce all that we need to improve our livelihood.<\/p>\n
\u201cImportation of onion, tomatoes is impossible because the Ghanaian farmer has both the comparative and competitive skills and experience also to produce sufficient rice, maize soya beans, livestock, and poultry products to feed Ghana as well as export surplus to our neighboring towns in Sahelian countries to earn hard foreign exchange,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Dr. Enoch Tham-Agyekum who spoke on Agricultural Extension and Development Communication, said agriculture is potentially driven by information stating that without it our practices are fraught with old traditional farming methods which are characterized by low productivity and vulnerability to climate variability.<\/p>\n
To increase access to information access to farmers he opposed an increase in the number of extension officers per farmer to bridge the extension-farmer ratio, indicating that access to timely, relevant, and quality information will aid the country\u2019s quest for food sufficiency.<\/p>\n
By Prince Fiifi Yorke\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\t<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Participants at the Swedru Conversation. INSET: Dr. Roger Kanton \u00a0 Former Research Scientist with the Savannah Agriculture Research Institute (SARI), Dr. Roger Kanton has lamented the increasing importation of onions, tomatoes, and other perishable crops from neighboring Niger and Burkina Faso to augment what is produced locally in the country. Data from the Ministry of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":151389,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-151388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-local-news"],"yoast_head":"\n
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