The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has indicated it is partnering the government of Ghana under its “Planting for Food and Jobs Programme.”

The partnership which is through the Ministry of Food and Agriculture is, specifically targeted at the “One District One Warehouse,” to help Ghana’s supply chain management which according to it, has the potential to strengthen the agricultural marketing channels and position Ghana to play a major role in the region and sub-region for supply of foods.

Mr Nanga Kaye, National Coordinator of Sustainable Foods System WFP Ghana Country Office, said this at the launch of the 8th Annual Pre-Harvest Agribusiness Conference and Exhibitions in Accra on Tuesday.

The conference which is to take place at the Tamale Sports Stadium on October 3 to 5, 2018 is to assist farmers and agribusinesses to expand their businesses before and after harvesting; and it’s expected to bring together farmers, buyers, input dealers, manufactures, development partners, financial institutions among others.

Mr Kaye said a strong agribusiness supply chain would enable Ghana to compete in modern consumer-driven markets, adding that that would lead to improvement of life of Ghanaians specially smallholder farmers.

“We at WFP see room for improvement in Ghana’s food supply chains from production to distribution of foods. We could point out and assess the structural and logistics bottlenecks which drive up inefficient and cause to colossal amount of food waste every year.”

He argued that it was, therefore, crucial to improve the supply chain to connect inputs to farm, and then on to storage, processing, transport and distribution to consumers in order to increase productivity and income of smallholder farmers.

He urged government to continue to create an enabling environment that strengthen agribusiness by paying close attention to the economic, social, and environment aspects of food supply chains, including information flow.

Dr Nurah Gyiele, Minister of State for Agriculture said even though agriculture still remained an important contributor to Ghana’s export earnings, a major source of input for manufacturing sector and employment, the sector in recent times have seen a reduction in growth.

He said the phenomenon needed to be reversed through appropriate policies and increased investments.

He, therefore, stated that government welcomes the support from WFP and other organizations such as the USAID’s Agricultural Development and Value Chain Enhancement (ADVANCE) and Agrihouse Foundation to the on-going national effort to develop the agricultural sector and sustain its growth.

He noted that he was pleased to know that this year’s programme was going to be held in the Northern Region where agricultural growth would help tremendously in the country’s poverty reduction drive. “If agriculture becomes successful in Northern Ghana, the problems of unemployment, low incomes and food insecurity would be largely taken care of.”

Dr Gyiele said over the years has built a good track record of good performance for itself, and encouraged everyone to rally around and support the initiative whilst exploiting the immense opportunities it brings.