Participants who attended Citi FM’s Operation Feed Yourself forum, have been advised to consider going into areas in agriculture that do not require huge financial investment until they’re grounded and able to expand.
The Operation Feed Yourself Project is aimed at encouraging Ghanaians to engage in farming on subsistence basis or as a business.
The event, which was highly patronized, was organized at the Swiss Spirit Suit Alisa Hotel in Accra on December 7, a day after Ghana observed the annual Farmers’ Day event to acknowledge the contribution of its active farming population to the country’s economic growth.
The objective of the Operation Feed Yourself project is to whip up interest in agriculture and agribusiness among Ghanaians for the purposes of achieving food sufficiency and creating wealth through agribusiness.
Additionally, the project is to encourage people to partner Small and Medium Enterprises, SMEs in agric, as well as get many people to go into full time agriculture.
Delivering his presentation, the Head of Animal Research Institute at the CSIR, Professor Edmund Sottie, advised the participants to venture into the low hanging fruits in agriculture such as livestock and poultry rearing, since there are new methods of keeping farm animals even at home to get the best value without creating a nuisance in the communities.
“At the ruminants’ level, we could look at the sheep and goats; which many people could go into even without much investment.
Maybe some families or group of friends can come together and go into such a venture. The technologies are available in terms of the feeding, in terms of how to manage them; and they’re very prolific in this part of our country and the market is there.
Sheep and goats are consumed on daily basis. When you talk of goat, all the chop bars, all the restaurants, all the joints they go in for goat.”
“We can also look at even the dairy industry. Of course that’s a bit on the high side when it comes to the capital to start investing; but it’s a virgin area.
We don’t consume milk in this country. Most of the milk we consume is something small that is either put in your tea or porridge. But when you go to other places, milk is drunk for breakfast by children; and we can look at that as an industry and start developing it,” he said.
“I also talked about the micro livestock; that’s the rabbit and the grass cutter. With rabbit you don’t need such a large space; if you have a small space, you could start it off and put your hatches and cages in there, and you start on a small scale.
They’re prolific; you can mate them every three months; so these are things that you can easily venture into. Of course it’s an area that the marketing side of it should be looked at; so that you don’t have the produce in your hand with no market for it”.
Speaking on the theme ‘Understanding Large Scale Farming, a farmer with over two decades of experience, who’s also the 2009 National Best Farmer, Davies Narh Korboe, cautioned participants who want to go into in agriculture for exports to always consider the variety of their produce which are accepted in order to avoid situations where farm produce will be rejected for not meeting international standards leading to losses.
On his part, the author of a book on agriculture, titled ‘More Profitable than Gold, Samuel Amartey, argued that farming is the best way to make fortunes if the right methods are followed.
Touching on how to equip human resource in agriculture to get the best results, the 2018 National Best Farmer and former Managing Director of Cadbury Ghana, James Boateng, advised commercial farmers to treat their workers as professionals.
The CEO of Citi FM and Citi TV, Samuel Attah-Mensah, who initiated the Operation Feed Yourself Project as part of Citi FM’s 15th anniversary celebration, agreed to a suggestion from some participants for an opportunity to visit the farms of the resource persons who made their presentations.
Some participants lauded Citi FM for organizing the agribusiness event, as it provided insight on the potential business opportunities within the agricultural value chain.
The one-day event assembled some of the best brains with experience in agribusiness to showcase to participants, most of whom had no prior experience and limited knowledge in commercial farming, factors to consider in starting up a farming business and scaling up.
“I have always had a little interest in agribusiness and I wanted to see if I could start something with it. The event has been very helpful. It has given me insight into what I could possibly do and what next steps I could take to join the industry,” Hubert Quaye, financial accountant, told Citi Business News at the end of the event.
As part of the project, participants have an opportunity to be trained at their own cost in various subsectors of agriculture to equip them to venture into any agribusiness of their choice.
Some notable organizations that participated included the Ghana COCOBOD, the Ghana Commodity Exchange, and the Ghana Export Promotion Authority.
The event was sponsored by Glofert, a leading fertilizer producer in Ghana.