The Regional Minister, Kwabena Okyere Darko-Mensah commissioning the rice processing factory
Five sustainable and eco-friendly businesses under the European Union’s (EU) GrEEn project have been commissioned in the Western Region.
The EU is funding the ‘Boosting Green Employment and Enterprise Opportunities in Ghana’ (GrEEn) Projects in the Western and Ashanti regions.
The projects are being implemented by SNV Netherlands Development Organisation in Ghana.
As part of GrEEn’s objectives of supporting green businesses and entrepreneurs, SNV Ghana rolled out the GrEEn Innovation Challenge in 2021 to award a matching grant of up to € 25,000 per an entrepreneur whose business produce innovative products.
Aside receiving grants from the GrEEn Project, the entrepreneurs of all the five businesses are graduates of the Project’s six months GrEEn Incubation Programme.
The newly constructed rice processing factory, christened ‘Roland Rice’, in the Shama District is on a two-acre land.
Jesse Roland Prah, a local rice producer in the district and the Chief Executive Officer of the factory was supported by the GrEEn Innovation Challenge and provided with €25,000 grant from the EU, to set up the factory.
The factory is equipped with a rice mill, de-stoner, a rice de-husker, polisher and a pelletiser machine to convert the rice husk into feed for pigs.
The business is expected to create jobs for the youth in the district and would also provide local rice growers access to a mill to improve rice production in the region.
At the commissioning ceremony, the Western Regional Minister, Kwabena Okyere Darko-Mensah advised graduates to endeavor to create their own jobs than to rely on government for public sector jobs.
At Tarkwa, a paper and package making company, Mending Papers Company Limited that processes farm waste such as plantain and banana stems, corn husks and other produce into paper bags and office materials was commissioned.
The business has created jobs and increase production from 50 bags to 300 bags after being awarded a €25,000 equivalent of GH¢175,000 matching grant by the European Union as part of the Project.
At Tamso near Tarkwa, 34-year-old Joel Antanah, the owner of Antanah Farms, commissioned an odour-free piggery made possible using a solution known as, Indigenous Micro Organism (IMO) technology and sawdust through the GH¢ 100,000 grant awarded to Joel from EU.
At Yiwabra in the Aowin Municipality, Amos Arthur, CEO of A.A. Community Spring Water commissioned a solar-powered water production system funded by the EU and servicing over 350 households.
Waterforce Ventures that produces organic soap, launched a new production site at Kejebil in Ahanta West municipality from a GH¢95,000 grant provided to her as part of the GrEEn Project.
From Emmanuel Opoku, TakoradiÂ