Monday, May 4, 2015

Solidaridad outreach programme for oil palm farmers




Solidaridad has organised an outreach programme on its Sustainable West Africa Palm oil Programme (SWAPP) Incubator And Access To Finance (SIAF) support at Kede in the Eastern Region. 

The programme was among other objectives to enable Solidaridad engage more farmers in how they can access finance to expand their farms.

It was also to allow Solidaridad's SWAPP to share its Best Management Practices on palm oil agronomy. 

Kosi Yankey, Agri-business Incubator Specialist, Solidaridadat, at a media interaction explained that the BMP holds promise for enhancing both yields and livelihoods.

She said due to the need to supplement a limited domestic supply, the BMP initiative aims to enable farmers adopt best agronomic practices in order to boost production and meet the huge demand in a country that already currently imports 70,000 tonnes of oil palm.

Since 2014, over 20 businesses showed interest in joining the incubator and receiving funding.  

About 12 businesses were eventually shortlisted, she explained: “Our selection process was based on the following factors: our in-house criteria; businesses with completed application forms; businesses that availed themselves for a due diligence; and those that provided a concept note that was interesting and supported our mission.  

“Our internal selection team graded the businesses, and ten were selected and inducted into the incubator.”  


The SIAF has invested in two businesses valued at US$100,000. The investments made in the two equipment manufacturers were made indirectly, as the funds were to specifically produce screw-presses for 20 mills spread throughout the country.  

The remaining three businesses that received funding directly are locally-owned medium-size mills. The total investment for the three mills is US$252,307.

Mr. Delle Kpebessan, SWAPP Regional Programme Manager, explained SWAPP is implementing the project not only to promote the idea that oil palm is profitable, but also encourage farmers to intensify cultivation of oil palm as a means of diversification from the traditional exports. 

So far, a total of 20 BMP have been established on selected farms in the Eastern, Central, Western, and Ashanti Regions of Ghana, in order to demonstrate benefits of the BMP approach that focuses on best agronomic and management practices to improve the yields and profitability of the sector.

About 400 smallholder farmers have been trained in BMP, an additional 27 new BMP partners have adopted the practice, and as a result 183.5 hectares of land are now under BMP.

The SWAPP Incubator is a component of the SWAPP that seeks to provide incubation support to help grow businesses and accelerate the development of a larger and more productive oil palm sector in West Africa.

The outreach was attended by a range of interested parties -- such as SWAPP staff, implementing farmers from both small scale and high-level oil palm farmers, and other partners.

No comments:

Post a Comment