THE Coffee Federation of Ghana (CFG) has started a number of initiatives to revamp the coffee industry and make the produce one of the most attractive and sought after commodities on the world market.
One of such initiatives is the development of a reliable data in the value chain which will serve as a guide or reference point for players in the industry.
The Vice President of the Coffee Federation of Ghana, Samuel Adimado, told journalists in an interview on the sidelines of the Federation’s Annual General Meeting in Accra on Friday that the future of the coffee industry hinged on a reliable data, without which the industry could not attract the needed investments.
Mr Adimado was confident that once the CFG was able to develop a very strong data for the industry, Ghana’s economy would be the ultimate beneficiary.
“Yes, Ghana is a player in the coffee industry but globally, if you want to say you are a player, you must have the statistics, data in order to argue out your position in the world coffee business,” he stated.
Although Ghana boasts of coffee farmers, a very comprehensive data was needed for Ghana to make a case for itself on the international market like cocoa to attract the needed investments, he acknowledged.
The CFG, he said, was in collaboration with the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) mapping out farmers and soil fertility to determine which areas the coffee crop would grow well, the type of planting material to use and warehouses to assess the strength of the coffee sector.
He said they were also developing a set of guidelines that would assist in regulating activities in the industry as well as developing a baseline assessment on coffee consumption in the country.
The aim of this exercise, Mr Adimado explained, was to “professionalise” the industry and make it more attractive, improve on the quality of the commodity and make coffee production more profitable to farmers.
Revealing that about 20,000 farmers had expressed interest in investing in the coffee industry, Mr Adimado believed that the profitability of the business would depend on the farmers who were keen on it and follow through the information that would be provided to them.
“What we want to amplify is that coffee should be a diversified option for farmers that want to go into coffee as an enterprise. So, we want to support coffee and champion it as a diversified income in the commodity arena. That is the idea behind CFG,” he explained.
Available statistics indicate that Africa produces about 10.8 per cent of the world’s total volume of coffee produced but consumes three per cent of the total coffee produced domestically.
The President of the Federation, Chief Nat Nsarko, on his part described the initiatives as the “game changer” in addressing the negative effects of world coffee pricing.
Ghana was strongly pushing for a major name in the world of coffee, leveraging on the government’s Planting for Exports and Rural Development (PERD), he said.
BY JULIUS YAO PETETSI
