A maize processing facility has been developed in Nsuta in the Sekyere Central District in Ghana. Minister of Trade and Industry, Alan Kyerematen during inauguration the Board of the company said the facility was set up in Nsuta to boost yield in the area.
It was discovered that farmers engaged in the same commodity (maize) value chains but lacked facilities to process the outputs from their farming operations. Alan Kyerematen thus said farmers will supply the facility with their maize and be paid dividends as beneficial owners of the company.
Factory which was constructed at a cost of GH¢6.7 million, was funded by government with support from the African Development Bank (AfDB). The facility has a capacity to process between four to five tonnes of dry maize, and five tonnes of maize grits per day respectively.
Common-user processing facilities model
The facility has been featured with a maize Drying Plant and a Grit Milling Machine. It is set to benefit more than 600 farmers in the area. The facility is among five common-user processing facilities established in other selected areas. The others have been sited at Tarkwa-Dompim in the Western Region, Savelugu at Northern Region, Sefwi Akotombra at Western North and Nkrah Nkwanta at Bono East Region.
Mr Kyerematen explained that the common-user processing facilities model were developed to enable farmers and other agricultural value chain actors, with little or no financial capacity, to establish their own factory to process their farm products.
“The government designed this model so that we do not leave out districts and communities that have so far not attracted investors in the industrialization drive. The common-user processing facility gives farmer-based organisations the opportunity to own a company, supply it with their produce and financially benefit from the company’s operations,” he stated.
