Ghana plans to increase its coffee production by over 300% in order to ramp up the export of the commodity. The West African country produces about 10 000 tonnes of coffee every year for the domestic market.
Ghana’s coffee industry is barely untapped compared with cocoa which contributes millions of dollars to the country’s GDP.
The Ghana Cocoa Board, an organisation tasked with managing the country’s cocoa, now wants to step up the production of coffee in the country. It says coffee can thrive in the same conditions and can also be planted in areas where cocoa is grown.
The Cocoa Board plans to distribute more than 600 000 coffee seeds to farmers. It hopes this will help scale up production of the crop from the annual 10 000 tonnes to 50 000 tonnes a year.
The global coffee industry is worth more than $100 billion.
Ethiopia and Uganda are Africa’s top producers of coffee most of it is exported and processed outside the continent. Ghana’s government says it plans to add value to the crop by helping farmers process the coffee before it is exported. -Reporting by Nabil Ahmed Rufai
