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