The Ghana Grains Company (GGC) is positioning itself as a leading grain industry association responsible for establishing and enforcing warehouse standards based on best practices to reduce post harvest losses.

The company has therefore introduced an innovative storage system called Warehousing Receipting System where farmers can store their grains at designated warehouses and issued with receipts as quantity guarantee and given access to the grains when needed so as to reduce post-harvest losses.

A number of training programmes have so far been undertaken by the GGC to sensitize farmers and Farmer-Based Organizations on the need to imbibe, adopt, and change their storage system to sustain availability of food at all times.

Dr. Kadri Alfah, the Chief Executive Officer of the GGC, said this in Tamale on Wednesday during the opening of a five-day training workshop for the FBOs in the rice sector who would intend educate farmers at the grassroots about the new concept.

He said the training would introduce the FBOs to warehouse receipting, grading, weighing and milled rice quality assurance issues; adding that the warehouse receipts system would offer the farmers the opportunity to clean, grade, fumigate, package and store appropriately to increase market appeal.

He said the FBOs could also sell their grains to a more profitable market including the World Food Programme’s Purchase for Progress (P4P), stressing that at the end of the five days training, all the FBOs would understand warehouse practices, grain standards, grading and storage and be able to deliver their rice to the Ghana Grains Council certified warehouse.

Dr. Alfah noted that the FBOs and farmers would be issued with warehouse receipts upon storing of their grains and it could also be used for selling the rice or as a collateral for loans from a bank or financial institution and offered daily rice price data through their mobile phones or other means to enable them decide on the right time to sell their stored grains.

The Ghana Grains Council (GGC) is a private sector organization formed in March 2010 with its members drawn from grain value chains including farmers, traders, food processors and various service providers such as banks, insurance and other financial institutions.**