IS THERE HOPE…?

As the rains intensified on that wet Thursday morning, I knew I had to be swift lest I miss my appointment with this local farmer who had graciously accepted to take me on a tour of his farm. His farm was located somewhere along the stretch between Pedu junction and Kakum national park on the Cape Coast-Twifo Praso highway.

This farmer together with his family have lived in their village for the past twenty years. He is one of several farmers in this enclave who have been engaging in subsistence farming for almost two decades in this village. The main crop he cultivates is the palm oil tree, though he also cultivates seasonal crops like maize, cassava, plantain, and cocoyam amongst others.

Palm oil is one of the cash crops produced by smallholder farmers in Ghana. Palm oil is a global multi-billion-dollar industry and is an essential raw material for the production of the world most consumed cooking oil. Red palm oil is probably the most consumed cooking oil in Ghana.

Apart from its usefulness in the production of soaps, detergents and, increasingly, in biofuels, the fruit of the palm oil tree is also used in the preparation of a very delicious delicacy in Ghana, the palm nut soup. My farmer friend tells me these days most of the harvest from his farm is sold at the local market at Abura in Cape Coast for palm nut soup preparation. The prices are unstable and barely enough to support him and his family.

The reason I am meeting my farmer friend is to find out how the support of the one-district one-factory initiative to Central Oil Mills Ltd is going to benefit him.

Central Oil Mills Limited is a wholly Ghanaian owned agro-processing company located at Jukwa in the Hemang Lower Denkyira District, which specialises in oil palm development and palm oil processing. The company established in 2010 is a viable company though faced with serious operational challenges. The Ministry of Trade and Industry through the government’s industrial transformation agenda recommended the company to the Ghana Exim Bank for support after conducting a technical and organizational audit.

Ghana Exim Bank in 2018, approved a Medium-Term Loan Facility of GH¢12 million to the company to undertake rehabilitation and expansion of its existing primary crude palm oil processing factory at Jukwa-Mfoum, the establishment of a brand new secondary (value-addition) oil palm processing factory at Jukwa-Asamanso, with the capacity to process vegetables (canned and bottled products), and the expansion and development of its oil palm plantation. A supplementary loan of GH¢2 million was subsequently provided by the bank towards the completion of the project.

The new facility will have the capacity to process 12,000 metric tonnes of fresh fruits bunches (FFB) per annum with the capacity to double that to 24,000 metric tonnes under a double shift system. This is an improvement on the initial 2,400 metric tonnes capacity of the factory before the expansion. The project will also see the expansion of the existing plantation by 200 acres per annum over the next five years through the acquisition of new trucks, and farm implements to support cultivation and transportation.

The project is expected to create a minimum of 200 direct jobs, a ten-fold increment from the current staff strength of 30 persons. More than 500 indirect jobs are also expected to be created within two years at both factory sites and from the plantation including at least 50 out-grower individual farmers. I hope my farmer friend is part of this group. He is cautiously optimistic and hopes this represent a steady stream of income for his family.

With about 30 per cent of our labour force in agriculture, the only way we can create a viable consumption demand to support domestic manufacturing is through ensuring a decent, regular, and reliable income for farmers. We have been using a firefighting approach towards industrialisation for so long, now is the time to target meaningful structural reform of the economy.

There is a crucial role for an activist state in promoting industrialisation and aligning it with the developmental aspirations of the citizenry. Indeed, for any industrial strategy to succeed, the relationship between the state and business cannot be overemphasized.

My next stop on my trip was at Gomoa Bewadze. I was here to learn about the operations of the agribusiness company, Casa De Ropa. The company was supported with a loan facility of GH¢14 million from the EXIM bank. The company currently employs 154 people directly and about 1,000 indirectly with about 80% of this workforce being female. The company hopes to increase its direct staff from the current 154 to 1,004 in the next two years with the scaling up of operations.

The conscious decision of the management of the company to engage a lot of women must be commended. For a region that is bedevilled with the menace of teenage pregnancy, such a gesture will go a long way to tackling gender poverty.

Casa De Ropa processes orange-fleshed sweet potato into puree which they process further into biscuits, bread, potato rolls and burger, pizza, crisps and chips and other pastry products without any sugar additives. The company currently can produce about 7,200 metric tonnes of pastries per day. The company has currently constructed three dams on its farm site to aid in the all-year-round production of the crops.

The Casa De Ropa joins the recently commissioned GH¢10 million state-of-the-art factory, CH Global in Addo Nkwanta. CH Global also operates under the one-district, one-factory initiative and has the capacity to process an average of 120 tubers of yam per hour. With the coming on stream of a cassava production line next year, the factory will also be processing 700 metric tonnes of cassava per year. CH Global currently employs some 250 people directly.

With Covid-19 wreaking havoc on the global economy, most companies in the last two years have struggled to balance the books. Indeed, few companies have managed to weather the storm the pandemic brought without having to lay off staff.

One of the bright spots in this Covid-ravaged economic crisis is the MaaGrace company limited in Koforidua, the capital city of the Eastern region of Ghana. This company specialises in the production of uniforms for security forces, staff of hotels, schools, and hospitals.

In 2019, the company exported 20,000 units of hospital scrubs and uniforms for chefs in the United States per month. This was increased to 80,000 units per month in 2020. About 600 youths have so far been employed by the company. The company, established in 2003 is being supported by the Ghana EXIM bank and the Ministry of Trade and Industries to expand its operations in order to create more jobs for the youth in the New Juabeng enclave.

Together with the GH¢6.2 million shoe manufacturing factory in Akuapem North district, I envisage a total halting of the importation of uniforms and boots for our security forces from abroad. The shoe manufacturing factory, Shoe Fabriek, currently has the capacity to produce 800 pairs of high-quality shoes in a day. Shoe Fabriek, also operating under the government’s one-district, one-factory initiative has so far created jobs for one hundred and forty-four people within its operational area.

Going forward, the government must use its procurement and purchasing power to support the growth of some of these local businesses and industries. It does not make sense for government-owned companies and regulatory agencies to spend taxpayers’ money in buying imported items that can be sourced from local producers. The only way we can end this vicious cycle of poverty and youth unemployment that is engulfing us is through industrialization. It is the only way we can tackle the cyclical depreciation of our natural currency when we begin to consume much of what we use in our daily lives from locally produced manufacturers.