Women in business to use money market

Dan Acquaye, the Chief Executive of Agri-Impact, has stressed the need for women in business to build capacities for searching the money market for the best opportunities.

He said often business people especially those at the micro level often strike deals with cash credit givers, especially local money lenders, that were hardly amenable to their business prospects.

Mr Acquaye was addressing a largely female class of Horticultural Aggregators at a skills upgrade programme held at the under-utilized Field Pack House at Vakpo-New Adomi in the North Dayi District of the Volta Region on Friday.

Lessons in the programme, split into two modules included cropping, post-harvest and business management.

Mr Acquaye put avenues for credit into four categories namely money lenders, finance, savings and loans and banks.

He said business people, such as the Aggregators would be better of dealing with the banks and Savings and Loans companies.

Mr Acquaye said in all money transactions, “you don’t rush and also knowing that interests on loans were part of expenditure and that they key is profit, not money”.

Participants were introduced to greenhouse methods of cropping which Mr Acquaye said was far more profitable than the open field approach.

He said fruit quality was high and labour less intensive in the greenhouse method.

Mr Acquaye told the GNA that the training, in a series for operators in horticulture marketing chain, was to meet the dainty tastes of “middle and high end markets”.

He said the other important lessons for the participants were sorting, grading and packaging of vegetables

Timothy Gyang, an agronomist, took participants to the field for firsthand knowledge about trellising rpt trellising and mulching rpt mulching in vegetable cultivation.

He told the GNA in an interview that seed quality, disease control and prevention, market surveys were crucial to stay on top of the business.

Gifty Mawuxom, a participant, told the GNA that she put lessons learnt in the first module into practice in an okro farm with good results.