The Ghana Commodity Exchange has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Venture Capital Trust Fund (VCTF), to support brokers and help them have access to farmers in trading their farm produce.
The move will also help thousands of farmers to get a good price for their harvest, while ensuring food security for the state.
The Ghana Commodity Exchange provides a platform that links agricultural and commodity producers and buyers to secure competitive prices for farmers’ produce.
Speaking to Citi Business News, the Chief Executive of the Ghana Commodity Exchange, Dr. Kadri Alfah, was hopeful the agreement will help farmers earn more money from their produce.
“The farmers require market. The MoU will ensure that we have a selected number of brokers who will through the Venture Capital Trust Fund, and will be able to go to these farmers and aggregate a selling quantity of commodities and provide a direct market for the farmers,” he said.
He explained that the partnership is part of the Government of Ghana’s efforts to boost Ghana’s food security, encourage youth in agriculture, and support Ghanaian smallholder farmers to improve their livelihoods and increase their incomes.
Dr. Alfah stated that the amount will be initially advanced to selected young agricultural entrepreneurs for the mobilization of selected commodities from within Ghana, from over 10,000 farmers, for onward supply within Ghana and neighboring West African countries.
Other terms in the MoU
VCTF has also agreed to provide essential training for approved businesses and enterprises, as well as support them with the necessary business advisory and technical services such as accounting, management, business strategy formulation and marketing.
Again, VCTF would support the selected entrepreneurs with corporate matching and mentoring through its executive mentoring program.
Ghana Commodity Exchange on the other hand would provide essential quality enhancement services such as cleaning, drying, sorting, to ensure that these commodities meet national and international standards before storing and subsequently trading them from GCX certified warehouses.
Importantly, GCX has also committed, through the MOU, to act as facilitator to implement this program.
This will be made possible by providing the necessary monitoring and supervision, technical and operational backstopping for quality control and to ensure strict compliance with GCX standards, while providing a ready market for commodities aggregated under the programme.
Furthermore, GCX has agreed to support selected aggregators with the required technical expertise on aggregation strategies, value-chain support tools and the necessary value-chain risk assessment techniques.
The Exchange would leverage its expertise in this field in order to make the collaboration successful.
Additionally, as part of this collaboration, both parties have agreed to engage with government to jointly secure the most appropriate funding mechanism for regional commodity aggregation, with the aim of reducing poverty through job and wealth creation.
This collaboration will go a long way to create prosperity for all in the agriculture value chain and make Ghana a regional and global trading hub for all commodities.
