Ghana's trees or people are sitting on money

Cocoa farming is a very huge part of our lives in Ghana, as we primarily grew cocoa until the time we began exporting cocoa but, at no time during the period from cocoa farm to export terminal did we ask ourselves, What if we actually processed the product?

We also grow rubber, palm, shea and cashew in Ghana. The climate supports these crops and the soil grows them well. Yet the cycle remains the same, raw goods come out and finished goods come back to us at premium prices paid from our sale of raw goods. This should be humiliating for all of us but we still continue to do this. I'm a Ghanaian so this is in no way to bring down the image of my own country but I do think that we could do way better than we are already doing.

Economically, we have a valid argument for developing an industrialized tree crop sector, not just planting trees but linking farming to processing factories, to packaging and finally to exporting the value added products. Other countries have gotten rich by implementing these systems. Malaysia is an example of palm, Ivory Coast is an example of the slow development of cocoa processing. It takes policy to create and support such systems, we aren't going to start that conversation now.

It is apparent there is nothing preventing us from developing the necessary infrastructure. The major question is whether we will decide that the tree is the end goal.

My cousin raised shea on property that nobody wanted in the northern part of the country, he sells the nuts very cheaply because there are no processing facilities located close to him. The void that exists between what is produced from land and what is rewarded in the marketplace is precisely where an industrial strategy should exist.

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