Agriculture
Agriculture
Still a major player
Ghana’s agriculture sector remains the largest sector of the economy, despite the disovery of oil and a booming services sector. Consisting mainly of subsistence farming, agriculture employs 54% of Ghana’s population, uses some 57% of the nation’s 23.9m hectares of land area as arable land and contributes about 42% of the country’s GDP. Ghana can be classified into three agricultural zones. The forest vegetation zone, with its plentiful rainfall, exists in the Western, Eastern, Ashanti, Brong-Ahafo and Volta Regions and produces cocoa (of which Ghana is the world’s second leading producer), coffee, oil palm, cashew and rubber, as well as the bulk of the plantain, banana and citrus supplies on which the nation relies. The northern savannah vegetation zone, which includes the Upper East, Upper West and Northern Region, is the largest. It is the source of rice, millet, sorghum, yam, tomato, cattle, sheep, goat, cotton, and recently mango and ostrich. Central, Greater Accra and
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parts of Volta Region make up the coastal savannah zone, known for its rice, maize, cassava, vegetables, sugar cane, mango, coconut, sweet potato and soybean crops, as well as livestock. Its bodies of water offer opportunities for fish farming or aquaculture. The major strengths of Ghana’s agricultural sector are its diverse commodities, extensive drainage basin, established agricultural research system and relative proximity to the European market. Traditionally, cocoa, cotton and palm oil have led the nation’s export tables, but lately the government has been encouraging non-traditional exports, such as fresh or chilled tuna, shea nuts, cashew, fresh or chilled fish, yam, banana and pineapple. Horticulture is a key part of the strategy to diversify the country’s export base. Pineapple, mango, papaya, banana, citrus, chilli pepper, tomato and plantain are some of the products from horticultural ventures which can be grouped under vegetable and fruit crop production, landscape horticulture, floriculture and nursery stock production. Lettuce, cabbage,
The market In 2011, Ghana exported a total weight of about 451.4m kilos of assorted cash crops to the international markets, earning a total amount of over $219m, an increment on 2010’s earnings. The US and the EU are the major destinations for textile and textile products from Ghana, and show consistent increase in demand over the last five years. In the same year – 2011 – Ghana earned a total revenue of $32.3m from exports of fish and seafood to the global market, which was also an increase on earnings from 2010. Canned foods also saw an increase, bringing a total of $270.1m in export earnings. Processed and semi-processed products exported amounted to the tune of $12.4m. Total exports of processed cocoa products amounted to $876.3m.
TopGuide l 2014
Overview
cauliflower, onion, spinach, tomato, carrot, French bean, turnip, cucumber, beet, and radish are produced in and around the principal towns and cities of the country. Ghana commands a great share of the African quota of the EU market in fruit and vegetable export. Other leading processed export products were tuna, cut fresh pineapples, other fish and tomato paste. Under government policy, efforts are being made to ensure the local processing of primary crops, such as cocoa beans, palm oil, pineapple, cotton, tomatoes, banana, citrus, coconut, tobacco, cashew and vegetables.This is largely taken care of by medium scale enterprises.
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