The Exhibition and Conference is a business forum and an interventional platform that provides opportunities for various value chain actors in the agriculture sector to meet and discuss business contracts as well as work together as a coherent team, whose goal is to ensure that enough produce is available locally for consumption thereby drastically reducing importation.

Mr Mark Douglas, Country Manager, Dizengoff Ghana Limited, presenting the Cheque said the Company had always associated itself with development and improvement of the Agriculture sector to develop the economy.

He said the exhibition and conference was a good vehicle and platform to expose their business to farmers and engage with them on how to improve on their yields with numerous technologies available in the system.

He said Dizengoff was coming on board to sponsor a field demonstration session with Green Housing technology to display to farmers its quality and benefits. On solving the Army Worm challenges, he said government together with farmers must do constant spraying of their farmers, saying that, “You can’t just spray once and think the worms will go, because the eggs will be underground and hatch the following day.”

Mr Ahmad Hashemi, the General Manager, Agriculture Division, Dizengoff Ghana Limited, said the Company was introducing new products into the sector to help farmers improve on their yields.

He said training and capacity building was one of the critical focus area the Company was engaging farmers in, adding that “We are engaging farmer Associations and Groups on how to manage their operations and finances.”

“We have established agreement with some Banks to evaluate operations of farmer groups to provide credit facility to expand their farming,” he added.  He said they were also giving the farmer Groups credit terms and making it easier for them to assess some of their quality products.

He said agribusiness in the Northern part of the country was important because of some limitations like less rain and dry season conditions, so the Company would focus more on the region during the conference activities.

Ms Yoki Tee-Koduah, Strategic Alliance and Project Lead, Agrihouse Foundation, said the event development partners would have a roundtable to discuss the importance of young people’s participation in agriculture, which is the largest employer in the country, as a way of reducing youth unemployment.

She said the Pre-harvest event was one of the biggest platforms for the convergence of all stakeholders in the agriculture sector to create the biggest opportunity for business development among others.

She said over 2,000 participants and exhibitors were expected to attend to interact, establish business relationships and discuss contracts as well as explore and exploit other growth opportunities in the sector.

“The event will showcase the many activities and businesses in the various areas of the agriculture sector, such as seed production, fertilizer, finance, fisheries, storage, machinery, livestock, packaging and processing and ICT, among others,” she added.

Ms Tee-Koduah said the event would also provide a platform to bring together commodity buyers, agribusiness service providers and farmers to establish business relationships and discuss contracts, explore, and exploit other growth possibilities.