Northern Farmers To Grow Vegetables For Export

The Northern Rural Growth Programme (NRGP) is assisting farmers in Northern Ghana to produce high-yielding quality vegetables that could be exported to Europe and other markets.

This forms part of the implementation of the NRGP, which seeks to contribute to poverty reduction in Northern Ghana through commodity chain development, rural infrastructure development and improved access to financial services by all stakeholders in the commodity value-chain.

Apart from helping the farmers to produce the vegetables in large quantities, the NRGP is facilitating the linkage between the producers, buyers or exporters to ensure that vegetables produced do not go waste.

In line with this, a one-day forum was held in Tamale for the Vegetable Producers and Exporters Association of Ghana (VEPEAG) and the Ghana Vegetable, Producers and Exporters Association (GAVEX) interact with the farmers.

About 50 representatives of various farmer groups in the three northern regions attended the forum, which enabled the exporters to educate the farmers on the type of vegetables in demand on the international market.

Speaking to the Daily Graphic, the presidents of VEPEAG and GAVEX, Mr Joseph Tontoh and Mr Samuel Nii Tackie, indicated that they were expanding their operations to cover the northern sector because of its potential of producing quality vegetables.

“The north is endowed with good weather, such as the night droppings, and this facilitates the growth of vegetables,” stated Mr Tontoh.

They also explained that it was more advantageous to export vegetables from the northern sector of Ghana to Europe than from other countries.

“Our competitors in Uganda and Kenya have to travel about 12 hours to get to Europe, but from the north, we could use only about six hours,” Mr Tontoh mentioned.

They, therefore, admitted that it was necessary to upgrade the Tamale Airport to international status to facilitate trade.

The two exporters also noted that in addition to sensitising the farmers to the varieties to produce, they would also teach them good agricultural practices to maximise yield.

The National Programme Co-ordinator of the NRGP, Mr Roy Ayariga, noted that currently the vegetable market in the north was disorganised and so the farmers were always the losers.

He said it was for this reason that the NRGP had organised the farmers into identifiable groups so as to support them with logistics and link them with the buyers and exporters.