Today, Wednesday, 25th September, at the Aliu Mahama Sports Stadium, in the Northern Regional capital city of Tamale, the much expected 9th Annual Pre-Harvest Conference and Exhibition will open to a projected audience of not less than 3000 participants.
In a press release issued from the city of Tamale by the organizing company, Agri-house Foundation, preparations for the annual agricultural event have all been set.
“Everything is now in place for another fulfilling staging of Ghana’s leading forefront agricultural event,” Ms. Alberta Akosa, Executive Director, Agrihouse Foundation, was quoted as saying and assuring that, more than the previous editions, this year’s will bring more relevant aspects that will further improve output from the northern region as well as the rest of Ghana’s agricultural sector.
Ms. Akosa further expounded: “This year, training and workshop sessions would explore thematic areas like Market Linkages, Commodity Pricing, Financing, Seed quality systems, and favorable agricultural policies, Best Practices in Agricultural Production, Nutrition, and Climate-smart. There would also be a focused training and capacity building session, impact on gender equality and women empowerment, Agricultural technology, and Innovation, among others.”
The event is expected to bring together about 3,000 farmers, value chain actors, and agribusiness owners to share ideas and discuss objectives and measures to be put in place to ensure that more structured and sustained market access and linkages is ultimately achieved in the sector.
With the theme, Market Accessibility: The Structured and Sustainable Pathway, the annual agricultural gathering has Hon. Dr. Gyiele Nurah, the Minister of State at the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, as the Keynote Speaker.
Other Special Guests and Speakers include Honourable Salifu Saeed, the Northern Regional Minister; H.H. Ron Strikker, Ambassador of The Netherlands to Ghana; Mr. Danquah Addo-Yobo, Managing Director, Yara Ghana Limited; Madam Pamela C. Bowen, Country Lead, the MADE Programme; and Mr. Joe Mensah, Vice President & Country Manager, Kosmos Energy.
Also speaking at the Pre-Harvest event would be Mr. Dan Sackey, Managing Director, Ecobank; Mr. James Boateng, 2018 National Best Farmer; and Christel Musadi Tshikudi, Chief of Party, USAID’s Advance Project.
Now in its 9th year, the Annual Pre-harvest Conference and Exhibitions event has become one of the leading and highly impactful interventional events on the Ghanaian Agribusiness calendar. The event will run from Wednesday 25th to Friday 27th September 2019, at the Ali Mahama Sports Stadium, Tamale.
In organizing this event, Agrihouse Foundation, in partnership with the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Northern Development Authority and the Northern Regional Coordinating Council, together with other private and international organizations, seeks to assist farmers and agribusinesses to expand their businesses before and after harvesting, and to create enabling environment for new partnerships to promote the growth of Ghana’s agricultural sector.
Northern Ghana is particularly targeted for this event because of the dire and urgent need to begin to explore the rich agricultural potential of the region for the effective improvement of the food basket from the region and alleviating poverty whilst at it. Northern Ghana, with at least 8 million unused acres of agricultural land with highly suitable soils, is ideal and open for large scale farming, development of modern agro-industry supply chains, poultry and vegetable oils, rice, sugar, cotton, cassava, shea butter highly value-added tree crops, livestock, aquaculture, etc. “We are happy to note that the event is already beginning to achieve positive indications that we are moving in the right direction,” Ms. Akosa enlightened.
The event won the Agribusiness event of the year 2018 and, that same year, it recorded a total of 3,122 participants and 141 exhibitors including farmers, traders, commodity brokers, input companies, machinery and equipment providers, transporters, financial institutions, ICT, Innovations, Poultry and Livestock companies, packaging and processing companies, development practitioners and government agencies, among others.
In addition to the support of USAID ADVANCE, the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Northern Development Authority and the Northern Regional Coordinating Council as organizing partners, the event also enjoys the sponsorship support of the MADE Programme, UKaid, Yara Ghana, Ecobank, Kosmos Energy, Ghana Commodity Exchange (GCX) and Chemico Limited.
