Development Bank Ghana (DBG) is to support four value chains in the agricultural sector to promote food security in the country.
They are poultry, rice, maize and soyabean.
The Deputy Chief Executive Officer of DBG, Michael Mensah Baah, disclosed this in an interaction with the media in Accra yesterday.
The programme was to brief the media on the DBG Value Chain Dialogue Series meant to engage stakeholders in the four value chains on how the Bank could partner government and provide finance to private sector players in those value chains to boost their production.
Mr Baah explained that the four value chains were critical to promoting food security in the country.
He said the COVID-19 pandemic, which had disrupted global supply chains and the Russian-Ukraine war, had necessitated the need for the country to increase production in those value chains.
The Deputy DBG CEO, for instance, said the country annually spent about $600 million to import poultry products and $1 billion on rice imports.
Mr Baah said the country could save those monies for other development projects if those products were produced locally.
The DBG Deputy CEO said the DBG had initiated the Value Chain Dialogue Series to interact with players in the four value chains to help increase local production and reduce the importation of poultry and cereals.
In view of the programme, Mr Baah said the DBG would organise four workshops, beginning from March 8.
He said the workshop would start from Sunyani and extended to Kumasi and Sogakope to interact with farmers and actors in those value chains to collate the challenges facing them.
He said DBG already knew some of the challenges facing the four value chains, but it was important to meet and dialogue with the stakeholders in the sector and know their challenges.
He said a lot of initiatives had been done in the past, but the results were not what were expected, saying that DBG had to do things differently.
He said DBG had about $700 million to lend to support the private sector.
The Chief Economist of DBG, Dr Kwabena Opuni-Frimpong, said DBG's support to the poultry, maize, rice and soyabean value chains were hinged on four pillars.
He mentioned them as identifying anchor Small and Medium-scale Enterprises for financing, providing patient financing and technical assistance, policy advocacy for competitiveness, and build strategic partnership.
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Dr Opuni-Frimpong said the DBG Value Dialogue Series would help to identify the challenges facing players in the poultry and cereal value chains.
Deputy Chief Economist of DBG, Dr Godwin Kojo-Ayenor, said the country needed to produce enough locally to feed itself and export the surplus.
To this end, he said the private sector needed to be supported to venture in the production of poultry and cereals.
A consultant to DBG, Professor Eric Osei-Assibey, said access to long term capital could enhance local production and reduce the cost of food.
For instance, he said, if day old chicks could be produced in Ghana, it would help reduce the cost of locally produced poultry products.
