New vegetable export guidelines soon

Company News of Thursday, May 30, 2019

Source: clbadfmonline.com

2019-05-30

The Ministry of Agriculture announced that it would soon adopt new regulations on vegetable exports after hiring farmers, exporters and other industry players on a new control system that will ensure that vegetables produced in Ghana meet international market standards.

The ministry announced a new moratorium on leafy vegetable exports due to ceaseless interceptions.

Speaking to the press in Accra, the sector minister, Mr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto, explained that the previous Mahama government was careless to ensure an ethical vegetable production, from where certain sanctions imposed on the country.

He explained that the Akufo-Addo government was able to ensure that the bans were revoked. However, industry players do not respect existing protocols.

"In October 2015, the EU banned Ghana from bringing a selection of vegetables to its markets because we were ignoring the rules and the rejections were only increasing … So when we entered we inherited the ban and the EU was ready. work with the government of Ghana by doing a, b, c, d, and we will lift the ban and the government has been very careless, not bored. We came within nine months to put all this in place and the ban was lifted on December 31, 2018, "he explained.

He added: "We must protect the new opportunities that are available to us. So we decided to put some measures in place to monitor ourselves and we see that we are going back to the same traditional methods. Suppliers, exporters are not going according to the regulations. We can not stand by for this to happen, so we have temporarily suspended exports. "

Afriyie Akoto has also announced a rice production program aimed at making Ghana self-sufficient in rice, whose cumulative import bill amounts to more than US $ 1.5 billion in the Ghanaian market.

He said the government has reserved non-traditional areas for rice production to boost production in the coming years.