Vice president opens 8th pre-harvest exhibitions and conference

The 8th edition of the annual Pre-harvest Exhibition and Conference is set to bring the Northern Regional Capital, Tamale to a standstill from 3rd to 5th October.

This year, the annual agricultural showpiece organized by, Agri-house Foundation, in partnership with the World Food Programme, Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA), Northern Regional Coordinating Council and the Northern Development Authority, is set to bring together stakeholders within and without the local agricultural sector to interact, share expertise and do business.

With a new expansive duration of 3 days, this year’s pre-harvest event will be held at the Aliu Mahama Sports Stadium, where an estimated 2000 participants are expected to savour what is arguably the single biggest gathering of agric-industry firms on a unique platform designed to facilitate knowledge exchange and business development.

Billed under the theme, ‘Agribusiness in Northern Ghana, the Future Starts Now’, the event’s Keynote Address will be delivered by Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, the Vice President of Ghana, himself a native of the Northern Region, venue for the Pre-harvest. There will also be speeches by other important dignitaries such as the United States Ambassador to Ghana, The Netherlands Ambassador to Ghana, the Country Representative, World Food Programme (WFP), amongst others.

The event promotes business partnerships among value chain actors, especially farmers, buyers, processors, transporters, input dealers, equipment dealers, financial institutions, telecom companies and policy makers.

According to Alberta Nana Akyaa Akosa, Team Lead for Agrihouse Foundation; organizers 0f the event, “The occasion is a major interventional exhibition and conference, which seeks to accelerate the transformation of agribusiness in Northern Ghana. It also aims to get the agribusiness sector to influence transformation, with the heightened focus on public-private partnerships, investment opportunities and creation an action-driven blueprint for an increasingly sustainable agricultural movement.”

For the first time since its inception in 2011, the 8th Pre-harvest Event is expected to attract 2000 participants and exhibitors including farmers, traders, commodity brokers, input companies, machinery and equipment providers, transporters, financial institutions, ICT, Innovations, Poultry and Livestock companies, packaging and processing companies, development practitioners and government agencies, among others.

Event Structure

The event will have panel discussion sessions on Agritech, the government’s Planting for Food & Jobs, and the role of the youth in improving the fortunes of agriculture.

The advent of new technologies and its impact on farmers’ productivity will be a key feature of a panel discussion at the Pre-harvest event under the Agri-tech workshop and it will showcase ideas like Agriculture incubation, a soil testing van, Aflasafe and Ripping technologies, amongst others. Participating institutions in this session will be Kosmos Energy, OCP, IITA and John Deere.

Also there will be separate workshops to discuss Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) with a presentation by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture on the PFJ’s Goals, targets and progress to date. The University for Development Studies (UDS) will also undertake an assessment of PFJ’s implementation, lessons learnt and the way forward. This will be followed by a panel discussion on the topic with discussants from MoFA, UDS, Yara Ghana, USAID ADVANCE and farmers.

Another theme to be discussed at the event will be ‘Youth in Agribusiness’ where some of Ghana’s development partners will have a roundtable on the importance of young people’s participation in agriculture, the largest employer in the country, as a way of reducing youth unemployment. Panelists are drawn from World Food Programme, YARA Ghana, USAID, KOICA, UK, representatives from the Dutch embassy and the Youth in Agric Directorate of the Ministry of Agric.

There will be additional sessions including Custom & Contract Farming and Farming with Purpose to be led by the World Food Programme, Seed Quality by Nastag, RMG, Dizengoff and Mofa Seed Inspection Unit; Agric Financing led by Ecobank, Mel Consulting, GIPC and GEPA.

A Field Demo session is also expected with Green Housing by Dizengoff, Corn Sheller by Motorking, Fertilizer Application and Mechanization by Yara Ghana and John Deere respectively.

Sponsors include Yara Ghana, Mel Consulting, Ecobank, Kosmos Energy, Interplast Limited, Motor King, Hatoum Trading, LK International, RMG, Dizengoff, and Tata John Deere.