“I’d also want to say something fundamental, not all of us can be farmers, not all of us should be able to go to the farm to go and till the land, there’s something that you need to understand and that is called Value Addition or Value Creation.” – John Dumelo
The popular Ghanaian actor, farmer and politician made this statement at the maiden edition of local NUGS women’s Commission Agripreneur fare in collaboration with Ekumfi Fruits and Juices LTD. The event was dubbed Agripreneur Conference 22 and themed ‘Building an enabling environment for the youth in entrepreneurship.’ It was held in the Amissah Arthur Language center on the campus of the University of Cape Coast (UCC) at 9:00 am on the 1st of April, 2022.
The event was geared toward enlightening students on agriculture, specifically Agribusiness, to clear the misconception that agriculture is only about going to the farm and to build the conception of Agribusiness in the mind of the students.
John Dumelo is a Ghanaian actor and director, businessman, farmer and politician. He remains one of the most sought-after stars in the whole of West Africa. With regards to farming, he is into products such as watermelon, pepper, ginger, livestock etc. Back in 2021, he took to social media to inspire his fans after he displayed three tons of ginger harvested from his farm. In 2019 also, he spoke at TEDxOsu on the topic “How to grow Agriculture in the next century in Africa to feed the world.”
In his speech, he said, “If you want to enter into Agric, you have to start on a small scale, if you start small, you will learn about the business and grow it well.” He advised the students through his story of how he started as a big-time snail farmer with a total of 5,000 snails but couldn’t succeed because his focus was on the huge profit at stake, not the farming process.
He further explained that it becomes easier to get financial institutions to help you if you know much about the agribusiness you are into because what those institutions will be looking at to help is your level of experience in that particular agribusiness.
In his speech he gave explained the value addition process, simplifying the whole chain to build the interest of the public and attract their participation in the agriculture sector.
“The value chain is so vast and wide that, all of us cannot be farmers and so think about the different avenues of being a farmer or venturing into agro-processing,” he added.
He further elaborated with an example, if I grow ginger, I can sell 6 kilos of raw ginger for 50 cedis but if I add value to it, I can make 150 cedis. “Value addition gives us two times the value of the price of the raw product,” he explained.
Mr. Dumelo gave the students a practical solution to this answer to the field of cocoa production as an agribusiness. He explained that for a student who wants to venture into agribusiness, this can be a good start. He advised them to buy the cocoa, go to Youtube, see how the cocoa is made into a paste, see how chocolates are done and they can create their own chocolate brand.
He motivated them further on, with the ready market in the agribusiness space and advised them to be motivated by the mere fact that, farmers provide food for all, therefore what to eat is dependent on you the farmer.
“As you leave, think about what business you can do, what value you can add to products and have passion for whatever you do. Passion, patience, and perseverance, these are the three keys things in agriculture”, he concluded.
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