Agriculture: Skills importation costing Ghana $1.5bn annually
Ghana, is losing approximately $1.5bn over the importation of expatriates with the requisite skills needed to manage large-scale and commercialized farms in the country.
This is according to the CEO of the Chamber of Agribusiness, Anthony Morrison.
Speaking on the NorvanReports and Economic Governance Platform X Space on the topic “Is Ghana’s Agriculture Sector In Danger”, on Sunday, Mr Morrison averred the importation of expatriates is due to the lack of Ghanaians with the requisite skills and expertise in managing farms in the country.
According to him, roles such as farm manager, agriculture engineer, and senior supervisor among others are roles occupied by expatriates in most of the biggest commercialized farms in the country.
“And these are skilled workers brought into the country from South Africa, UK, India, Ivory Coast and the rest,” he added.
Further stating that Ghana has a huge deficit in the skills it requires to transform the agricultural sector.
Speaking further, Mr Morrison noted that agricultural imports cost Ghana several billions of dollars annually.
“Ghana imports tomatoes worth $600m every year, $800m in onions, $1.2bn in rice, $1.7bn in poultry, $1.2bn in frozen meat just to name a few,” he noted, bemoaning the fact that Ghana records more than $2.2bn in post-harvest losses.
Mr Morrison called on the Government to invest more in the agriculture sector by making more budgetary allocation to the sector – 10% of the budget.
Furthermore, he noted plans by the Government to set up the Agricultural Insurance Fund to help de-risk the sector.
Which commercial farms is Mr Morrison talking about. I know of Golden exotic and Volta River Estates Limited both banana producing companies as well as Ghana Rubber Estates Limited which have Ghanaians at their top management at both technical and administrative levels?
If the source of the data can also be quoted, it will be helpful.