Accra, Jan. 31, - Government
through the Ghana Export Promotion Authority (GEPA) has introduced a number of
intervention programmes to sustain the Ekumfi Pineapple Processing Factory
(EPPF) among other sensitive industries.
In an interview with Eric Amoako
Twum, the Deputy Chief Executive Officer of GEPA on Wednesday, he said the
Authority has provided five million pineapple suckers to feed the EPPF as part
of an effort to sustain the operations of the factory.
He said government, through the
intervention has enabled the factory to create 4,000 direct jobs and
additionally employ more than 5,000 out growers from Agona, Gomoa, Ekumfi and
other adjoining districts to be suppliers to the EPPF.
Mr Amoako Twum said the Authority
has contracted Billy Farms, a local company to supply the smooth cayenne
pineapple suckers needed to the 5,000 smallholder farmers, who would in turn
supply the EPPF for processing.
He said the government provided
GH₵4 million as the total cost
for the production of suckers to feed the factory to ensure its sustainability.
He said other existing fruit
processing factories in the country could be supplied with some of the
pineapples if excess was witnessed as a result of the various interventions
being made.
Touching on the cashew nut
industry, Mr Amoako Twum said the GEPA as an institution with the mandate to
develop and promote Ghana’s export trade, has undertaken interventions to grow
the export sector.
He said the Authority supported
cashew farmers with GHC 1.6 million to help them procure seedlings, herbicides,
insecticides and other farming needs for the mass production of cashew nuts in
the country.
He said the President would be
launching the Cashew Development Plan to ensure that a sustainable production
road-map towards positioning the crop as an agriculture goldmine for the
country.
The Plan, Mr Amoako Twum said
would resolve issues of infrastructure and other needed government support for
cashew as well as outline measures to promote its production, sales and
processing.
He said more than 75,000 farmers
in the country are engaged in the production of cashew cultivation, most of
them situated in the Brong Ahafo, Northern, Ashanti and Volta Regions.
Another intervention to induce
growth in the export industry, he said, had been the support provided to the
garments and textile sector to establish an association to help them achieve
their objective of contributing to the growth of the economy.
He said the garment sector was
considered as the second largest employment sector in the country after
agriculture, with the capacity to create jobs for both the educated and the
less educated youth and women.
On smallholder farmers’ export,
he said the Authority has introduced a packaging standardisation to ensure that
branding and packaging did not throw smaller producers out of business.
He said the modalities for the
standardisation package were underway and once it was ready, the Authority
would make it known to the stakeholders.
GNA
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