The Ghana-India Trade Advisory Chamber (GITAC) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Chamber of Agribusiness Ghana at the Ministry of Business Development’s conference room, Accra to harness the accessibility of funds, technology, and trade to boost production in the agriculture industry.
As a business advisory entity of promoting trade and investment, GITAC’s effort is to consolidate and synergize with the Chamber of Agribusiness to harmonize their energy for effective support in the agric sector.
According to the President of the GITAC, Mr. Dominic Oduro, the key components of the partnership are trade, business development, investment, and funding. He explained that funding is a critical issue in the agric sector, and as a result, the partnership would ease the stress of having access to technological supports like inputs from investors in India which could have been purchased at a higher price by the Ghanaian farmers.
India is technologically savvy and investing in Ghana’s agriculture sector would increase the yield to solve food security across the continent.
Speaking to Agric Today, Mr. Oduro expressed that India buy a lot of cashew from Ghana and partnership would haul Indian investors to Ghana to invest in cashew. “They buy a lot of cashew from Ghana, therefore, we have to find out how Indians can invest into our farms to increase cashew production and this makes the partnership paramount as trade is concern”, he said.
In addition, Mr. Patrice Ceaser-Sowah, the CEO of the Ghana-India Trade Advisory Chamber said that the partnership with Chamber of Agribusiness Ghana would help to mitigate post-harvest losses as GITAC provides business advisory point and the Chamber of Agribusiness Ghana provides the value addition point.
For his part, the outcome of the partnership would motivate more youth to venture into the agric sector to curb the aged working ratio in the agric industry.
In response, the CEO of the Chamber of Agribusiness Ghana (CAG), Mr. Anthony Morrison thanked GITAC for such a critical partnership. He mentioned that the partnership has come at an appropriate time because the industry is financially challenged with regards to the foundation of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA).
“With the foundation of AfCFTA, we have identified the fact that there would be a lot of challenges with regards to the industry and one of the challenges has to do with financing. We need to leverage on this partnership to drive in critical investment into the agric value chain from production, post-harvest challenges, processing, value addition, transportation, skill, and technology to scale up productivity and value chain supply demand in order to take the right footstep being competitive and having the comparative advantage in the AfCFTA”, he said.
He continued that India has a big market due to its population and it is very strategic and advantageous for Ghana in advancing options in the agribusiness ecosystem.
He added that GITAC in the partnership would profile possible destinations for Ghanaian produce and the chamber would also continue to profile prospective companies with capacities to produce for strategic markets in India.
He concluded by saying that the partnership would provide the platform for exchange programmes, agro-tourism, agro-education, and the technology drive between and among Ghanaian farmers and the Indians.
