The Minister for Food and Agriculture, Hon. Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto received a delegation from Afruibana on June 27 2022.
Afruibana is a Pan-African association of producers and exporters of fruit, particularly bananas in the Ivory Coast, Cameroon and Ghana.
With a total of 80,000 direct and indirect jobs and a production of over 6.7 metric tonnes of bananas in 2021, the association is aimed at promoting the development of trade relations between Africa and the European Union through the export of African fruits to the European Union.
The delegation led by the President of Afruibana, Joseph Owona Kono presented to the Minister the pressing issues facing the association indicating two ( 2) institutional issues: Living wage and Lack of Cooperation.
The President of Afruibana explained that wage levels imposed by Fairtrade and Rainforest Alliance are not in line with wage legislation and regulations in the respective countries and could create distortions and inflated operational costs.
On lack of cooperation, he averred that the new European Cooperation instrument (NDICI) has already gone through the programming stage and has not taken the banana sector into account.
He, therefore, suggested to governments of the respective countries that form the association including Ghana to support accessing other resources like regional funds, food production and the resilience of agricultural commodities programme ( ACP) food systems to increase volumes, accelerate the ecological transition and provide more decent jobs.
Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto in his remarks suggested to Afruibana to provide the necessary documents to enable him to take action.
The minister advised the pressing issues to the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, Hon. Ignatius Baffour-Awuah for further deliberations.
