There has been a significant correlation between the abundance of raw crop produce and processed produce. Mostly, the ripple effect of the abundance of crop produce is post-harvest losses, a factor contributing to the huge loss witnessed in the agricultural sector.
This year, the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA), has communicated that the production of cassava locally is expected to increase by 7.62% from 22.9 million metric tonnes in 2020/2021 to 24.7 million metric tonnes in the 2021/2022 crop season.
With this projection, which is realistic to achieve, there is a need for investors to grab the huge agribusiness deal that comes with the boost in cassava production projected by the Ministry. One of the areas to grab is agro-processing. Agro-processing has been tried and tested over time to be one of the main pillars of the economy due to the numerous advantages it brings to the agricultural sector.
Agro-processing basically means adding value to a crop for use locally or for exports. This comes with benefits such as mitigating post-harvest loss, creating more employment opportunities, sustaining livelihoods for farmers and increasing foreign exchange earnings, and generating much income for the investors and the economy at large.
When investors grab this opportunity, the work done by the Ministry to ensure food security and support the economy would come to fruition. It should be noted that the production of the crop is a part of the value chain and that investors, processors, and exporters form part of the value chain. In the state where all the actors in the value chain come together to grab the opportunities embedded in the massive boost estimated by MoFA, the cassava value chain would be strengthened; thereby, translating into a robust economy.
A focus on cassava starch processing
Globally, cassava starch is needed for use in a lot of industries, such as pharmaceuticals, textiles, and many other industries. The high demand for starch in these industries is a significant factor in the need to scale up the production of cassava starch. Many investors and farmers who have gone into cassava starch processing have benefitted a lot from the sector due to its lucrative nature.
The TIAST factor
The cassava starch processing intervention solidly provided by TIAST Group has afforded a lot of investors, entrepreneurs, farmers and interested parties the opportunity to venture into cassava starch processing, and own a factory of their own. The intervention came as good news to a lot of Ghanaian entrepreneurs and farmers due to the security of quick offtake services on the international market at standard market prices.
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