Tell us a bit about what’s happening – and what’s growing –on the ground in Ghana right now.
Anthony Sikpa: Ghana has lots of export potential, especially in the fresh produce sector. Most clients tell us the quality and the taste of what we produce are different – and better. Papaya, for example: we’re not known to be big producers of it but, if you taste our papaya, it has a unique taste. We also produce MD2 pineapples. We’ve held our own there, even though we’ve faced some difficulties in our production.
And we have varieties of avocado here that are totally unknown in the European market. Nobody produces them in a sustainable way; they’re planted as a hobby, one-off trees in backyards or wherever. But you see the quantities on the local market and you think, if that was harnessed properly, it would make an impact internationally – especially for catering groups, restaurants and hotels. They are not the kind that European families are used to, but they are very tasty – better than Hass.
And those are just a few of the areas in which we could make a big impact, if we paid attention to them. Our fresh produce basket might not be as large as some –our varieties are few – but, qualitatively, we can produce them better. That for me is the advantage that we have, and that we have not fully exploited.
The government has been talking quite loudly about diversifying the national portfolio of exports into areas like fresh produce. What’s happening on that front?
AS: Those are ideas we’ve bandied around for a very long time. And, yes, we have that potential – we have greenhouses, lots of water and sun all the time – but I do not see specific interventions or goals being set to get us there within a certain period. I am a strong believer that, if we had had better organised and more focused support from government, we would have already achieved much greater heights.
Ghana has incurred a series of fresh produce import bans from the EU over the last few years. Are pests and residues now a problem of the past?
AS: No. In September, the government had to put a hold on leafy green vegetables going out of here. But it’s not that everything has pest or residue problems. It’s specifically leafy green vegetables, because they do not go through strict, standardised procedures like our mangoes, papayas and pineapples do to get through to the EU.
Those leafy greens are meant for specific, niche markets, like those in Asia and like the indigenous African markets in Europe. It’s almost like people were shipping to close relatives, so the enforcement of standards was not there. At the production end, farmers just produce them anyhow and there is a very weak link between them and the market. Traders buy from whoever, then send the goods to the port. Our agencies at the port have not been strict about compliance – they issue certificates that have been found wanting at the other end. That’s why we’ve been getting what we’ve been getting. We need to sit down and look at the whole chain, the whole process. Perhaps this announcement of the ban will be the beginning of that. Perhaps.
So is it a problem of knowledge and information? Or infrastructure? Or procedure and enforcement?
AS: It could be all of those things. Information about the EU’s requirements has probably not been passed down to our farmers. They have also not had the training they need to meet those requirements. And our enforcement is not thorough. That’s simply because, locally, nobody does that kind of enforcement. I don’t need anybody’s approval to grow something and put it on the local market to sell.
The difficulties come from the dissonance between what happens here and what happens elsewhere. This is something we need to resolve quickly if we are to remain in business. But I don’t think all of our producers should be required to have all of the infrastructure like packhouses and trucks. We should be encouraging other businesses to come in and install those kinds of facilities. They can bring their own expertise and they can do it better.
Whose responsibility is it to resolve these difficulties?
AS: Well, it’s not just the government’s responsibility. If you want to remain in business, it’s what you must do. I’ve said as much in our latest newsletter: you cannot hope to be an exporter without operating to current standards. Those standards are effectively the agreement between the two parties. You cannot keep breaking agreements.
Are European importers doing much to help in this regard?
AS: No. We’re very much aware of GlobalGAP, for example, and a technical committee of theirs has delivered a National Interpretation Guideline for Ghana. Apart from that, which was done with the help of Coleacp, we’ve got very little from any buyer. Beyond that, our smallholders are meeting GlobalGAP standards with the help of development partners like GIZ and GhanaVeg. I hope to see government now adopting similar standards to guarantee food safety among our citizens. There is one coming, the Green Label, and in this way we can prepare our farmers to meet international standards.
Is there anything else standing between Ghanaian fresh produce and the European market?
AS: Almost all of our farmers are smallholders, with a maximum of 80ha. We don’t have plantations, and cooperatives are not very popular here, so they go to the market individually. If someone wants, say, 20 tonnes of chillies or okra or aubergines for export, they have to aggregate. That increases the transaction costs, which means there isn’t much resource left to make sure the right things are done.
Compagnie Fruitiere has been setting up banana plantations out here, linking them up with local smallholders. Can anything be learnt from what it’s done?
AS: Compagnie Fruitiere is doing well in bananas, but banana production is all about irrigation. It’s not just anybody who can do what they’ve done. Volta River Estates, who are Dutch, are doing something similar, but no single Ghanaian has ventured into banana production in that way – simply because we don’t have the technical or financial resources. It’s not easy, but there could be opportunities for many such ventures if we can attract them here. Vegetables are an area to look at: there’s plenty of water for irrigation here, and it only takes them 30, 60, 90 days to mature.
Ghana’s currency fell by more than 25 per cent in the first half of 2015 and hasn’t fully recovered. How has that affected the fresh produce business?
AS: It’s not the worst thing to happen to an exporter, except that our exporters tend to rely on imports from elsewhere in order to process their produce. So it’s another reason why we need to move from just exporting primary produce to processing somehow – even if it’s just packaging. Blue Skies is doing well, but it’s one company. We could all do more juices, concentrates and more dried produce. Dried papaya tastes wonderful, so does dried mango, and we could also be drying vegetables like chilies.
These are our low-hanging fruits, if you like: the ones with the most potential to add value, and the ones with demand from elsewhere. This is where my thoughts are going, but I’m not a policymaker. I can only make recommendations, and I’m of the view that unless we change the way we do things, we will not be able to achieve anything different from what we’re achieving now.
Which one local product are you most excited about today?
AS: I’d say pineapple. The variety we produced before MD2 could still be relevant today for that local value addition. I remember my own kids going to school every day with a pack of pineapple juice in their bags. Nowadays, you can’t get it – the shops here are flooded with imports from Lebanon, Dubai, China or wherever. This is where I’d start to change things. We have oranges too and, if we support local consumption, that would be enough to increase production, then we could adapt the production to suit the needs of the international market.
The problem is that our windows are short – our pineapple and mango seasons are no more than four months a year – so processors and other companies don’t want to set up here. This is really what we need to look at.
