The Kpando Municipal Assembly is exploring strategic avenues to make the area a net exporter of fruits and vegetables, particularly butter squash.

Mrs Paulina Delali Adinyirah, Kpando Municipal Chief Executive, in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, said consultations and feasibility studies had been carried out with an Israeli investor into smallholder irrigation systems to provide all-year-round water for large-scale production.

She said this would lead to the rejuvenation of the defunct Kpando-Torkor irrigation project to boost farming activities along the banks of the Volta Lake.

Mrs Adinyirah said some stores in Accra had already expressed interest to do business with farmers after inspecting the state-of-the-art packaging warehouse for fruits and vegetables at Vakpo.

She said management was, therefore, collaborating with the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) and some non-governmental organisations to harness and improve on good agronomic and quality control measures to meet the expected standards.

The MCE said the area had a comparative advantage in the cultivation and production of okro, pepper and garden eggs, which would be explored to shore-up the creation of jobs for the youth.

She urged the teeming youth to take advantage of the project to better their lot and become self-reliant.

On the butter squash, Mrs Adinyirah said the sweet nutty taste, yellow skin and orange fleshy pulp vegetable, is a good source of fibre, vitamin A, C, and E as well as manganese, magnesium and potasium.

She said the squash, which could be roasted, toasted, pureed for soups or mashed and used in casseroles, breads and muffins, is widely patronised in the United States, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.