‘Neglect’ of coffee industry results in export revenue decline – CFG President
Revenue in exports from coffee for the year 2018 was US$34,000.
This is according to the President of the Coffee Federation of Ghana (CFG), Chief Nat Ebo Nsarko.
The US$34,000 export revenue recorded for 2018 stands in sharp contrast for the export revenue of US$1.4 billion in 2016.
“Coffee export revenue for 2015 was US$3,000, in 2016 it went as high as US$1.4 billion and fell to US$55,000 in 2017 and then to US$34,000 in 2018,” stated Mr. Nsarko in an interview.
“So you can see that we have been struggling, whereas other African countries are doing very well and contributing hugely to their GDP, Ghana does only about 0.2 percent of GDP,” he added.
The federation has lamented over the government’s reluctance to invest in the production of the crop as well as its entire value chain although it requires minimum capital to do so.
Meanwhile, the President in April 2019, launched the Planting for Export and Rural Development (PERD), an initiative meant to further boost the revival of the country’s economic growth through the agricultural sector, especially, the production of cash crops like coffee for exports.
The federation lauding the initiative noted that PERD is a good springboard to mainstream Ghana’s cash crop trading, including coffee – a crop that has taken the center stage as the hottest commodity on the world market in recent times.
PERD is designed to focus on the development of selected export tree crops namely cashew, coffee, oil palm, coconut, mango, and rubber, and also present to Ghana opportunities for export diversification and new sources of revenue.
