The Minister of Food and Agriculture, Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto, has revealed that the Ghanaian Coffee Industry is undergoing a revolution through the government’s Coffee Development Programme, which is meant to support the growth of the industry.
The Agric Minister, made this known at the 60th General Assembly of the Inter-African Coffee Organization (IACO) held virtually in Accra.
The Coffee Development Programme, spearheaded by the Ghana Cocoa Board, has already led to the doubling of output to above 12,000 tonnes per annum with yields about 1.4 tonnes per hectare.
“The Ghanaian Coffee Industry, like many others in Africa, is undergoing a revolution. A revolution underlined by the desire to transition from colonial legacy to African autonomy,” he said.
Speaking on the Development Programme, Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto intimated that, to consolidate the gains and propel the Coffee Sector to a similar status as Cocoa in Ghana, COCOBOD is in the process of creating a division. The division’s mandate, among others, would be to intensify support to the coffee sector through research, extension support, and regulation of marketing and processing activities, he added.
The Minister, who is the Chairman of IACO, said African producers had continued to target Europe and North America as the key market for export of coffee beans, adding that by this arrangement, the fortunes of the hardworking producers were tied to a volatile market, underpinned by the economic conditions of those economies.
“One of the valuable lessons from this pandemic is the domestication of critical commodity value chains,” he said.
According to Mr Owusu Afriyie Akoto, increasing continental consumption and raising the level of domestic value addition of these commodities was long overdue, stating that the slow pace of industrialization is not marching up to the needs of the young and vibrant African population.
“This situation has resulted in huge imports of finished products from other parts of the world,” he added.
He revealed that the government is committed to intensifying the effective participation of the private sector in the Coffee value chain with the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) to create an opportunity for Intra-African trade to open up markets for agricultural produce. He said the rising urbanization provided an available market for Coffee producers in the country, stating that an urbanized population with rising incomes presented opportunities for the African private sector to increase value addition of products on the continent.
Dr Frederick Kawuma, the Secretary-General of IACO, said they are collaborating with the African Union to boost the production of coffee on the continent, indicating that Africa was the world’s largest producer of the cash crop but they are making woefully less in income. Dr Kawuma revealed that arrangements are being made for amendments of the international pricing of the commodity for farmers to earn more.
Local industries having suffered dwindling production, there are interventions in place at the regional and local levels to scale up production through research and development, seedling distribution and disease control, Dr. Kawuma added.
