Some workers at a fruit processing factory
Alistair Djimatey, Corporate Affairs Director at Blue Skies, a fruit processing company, has said local fruit processing companies risk collapse due to inadequate raw materials.
Speaking to Citi Fm yesterday in Accra, Mr. Djimatey said several fruit processing factories struggle to access quality raw materials from farmers, making it impossible to meet the local demands.
“We have the capacity to produce enough for the entire country, but the fact is that we don’t have the raw material to process and there are several factors that are militating against the production of the raw material. If you look at pineapple for instance, we used to have about 36 farms in this country; but currently we have just about six farms. And several government policies and land tenure system challenges have contributed to the collapse of some of these businesses.”
Appeal to government
He called on government to intervene through its much-hyped Planting for Foods and Jobs programme.
“It is very true that some [factories] might collapse because what is the essence of the factory when you don’t have raw material to produce? The challenge has to do with availability of raw material. I can tell you that if nothing is done to improve pineapple production to ensure that we get the right quality and yield from our mango and even other fruits that we have in this country, most of these businesses are in danger of collapsing,” he added.
Mechanised agriculture
“It’s a very good idea; but I think that a lot more needs to be done than just hyping the planting for foods and jobs. I think it is something that has to do with feeding the local market. If we want to produce so that we can have some of these produce going into processing, we need to mechanize our agriculture, we need to cultivate more lands so that people will cultivate to feed industries. I believe that we need a better agriculture system that will produce food crops, feed industry so that we can create jobs and also support our local economy,” Mr. Djimatey added.
Annual fruit imports
The Blue Skies Director was reacting to news reports that said Ghana imports about $150 million worth of fruit juice each year.
The report also indicated that only US$ 40 million worth of juice, representing 28 percent of total domestic demand, was produced in the country, while some local producing companies factories, including Coastal Groove in the Central Region, Coco Bean, also in the Central Region, Sunripe in the Eastern Region, Premium Kingdom in the Volta Region, Pinora, Blue Skies and Fruity Land, were said to be operating under 10 percent capacity.