Ghana has urged global investors to back its tree crops sector, presenting a 100,000 hectare oil palm expansion and value addition opportunities at the Ghana-UK Investment Summit in London.
Tree Crops Development Authority (TCDA) Chief Executive Dr Andy Osei Okrah told agribusiness leaders, investors and officials that Ghana offered policy stability and a favourable business climate as it seeks to industrialise the sector and grow exports.
A centrepiece of his pitch was the plan to develop 100,000 hectares of new oil palm plantations, backed by a proposed 500 million dollar financing facility under a national oil palm policy projected to create up to 250,000 jobs.
Okrah said the sector’s promise extended across all the crops the Authority regulates. “Oil palm will lead, but all the crops have strong commercial potential,” he said.
Those crops are cashew, coconut, shea, oil palm, rubber and mango. Okrah said the strategy centred on moving beyond raw commodity exports toward value addition and industrial processing across the whole value chain.
He cited opportunities in shea, where he pointed to strong projected growth in global demand, and in cashew, where waste such as the cashew apple could be processed into juice and other consumer goods. On rubber, he outlined plans to reclaim degraded land and build local processing, including factories able to make vehicle tyres.
Okrah also highlighted measures to support domestic manufacturing, including a directive reserving half of raw materials for local processors under the government’s industrialisation drive, which he said would strengthen local industry and create sustainable jobs.
He framed the agenda within President John Dramani Mahama’s Resetting Agenda, positioning agriculture as a platform for transformation, employment and long term investment.
