Central region: President John Dramani Mahama's proposed Feed the Industries policy seeks to connect large-scale agricultural production directly to domestic processing, providing the raw materials needed to raise factory output, create sustainable employment, and support Ghana's 24-Hour Economy.
According to Ghana Web, the programme is expected to begin with a Central Region pilot targeting more than 18,000 youth employment and enterprise opportunities across farming, aggregation, transportation, processing, packaging, logistics, and distribution. A nationwide rollout could create over 250,000 opportunities while increasing raw-material supplies to agro-processors and raising factory capacity utilization for domestic and export production.
More than 15,000 acres have reportedly been secured in the Central Region for high-value and industrial crops. The pilot is expected to include the Central Citrus Processing Factory at Asebu and the Youth in High-Value Crop Value Chain Programme covering Ekumfi and other parts of the region.
Feed the Industries seeks to address a major constraint facing Ghana's agro-processing industry: reliable year-round supplies of raw materials. Longer factory operating hours under the 24-Hour Economy will require more than additional shifts. Processing plants need adequate inputs, power, transport, storage, financing, and markets to sustain increased production. The more than 15,000 acres identified in the Central Region could provide an initial production base for crops required by processors.
Under the proposed Value Chain Contracting for Youth model, young people would operate in commercial production clusters linked to established buyers. This would give farmers greater certainty over what to produce and where to sell, while factories gain greater visibility over the quantity and timing of supplies.
Ekumfi Fruits and Juices provide one of the clearest opportunities to demonstrate the industrial impact of the programme. The factory has the capacity to process about 10 tonnes of pineapple, or roughly 10,000 fruits, every hour. At that rate, one hour of processing requires the equivalent of about four acres of harvested pineapple.
The raw-material intervention is being complemented by the removal of the 20 percent excise-duty burden on locally manufactured natural fruit juices. The measure could improve the competitive position of domestic processors by reducing the tax burden on finished products while Feed the Industries tackles constraints on the supply side.
Moving Ekumfi above 80 percent capacity would create economic activity well beyond the factory floor. Previous company figures showed more than 1,000 workers, mostly on its farms, and more than 75 professionals at the factory. The company was operating two shifts at the time and planned to increase this to three as production expanded. At full capacity, earlier projections indicated the plant could produce about 300 million packs of juice annually for domestic and export markets.
The Central Citrus Processing Factory at Asebu provides another test of the model. The factory has been reported to have the capacity to process more than 15 tonnes of oranges per hour. Together with Ekumfi's 10-tonne-per-hour pineapple capacity, the two plants represent more than 25 tonnes of headline fruit-processing capacity every hour when operating at their stated rates.
The Central Region pilot is projected to facilitate more than 18,000 direct and indirect youth employment and enterprise opportunities. The opportunities extend beyond direct farming and factory employment. Increasing agricultural output would require nursery operators, irrigation technicians, tractor operators, agronomists, extension officers, harvesting teams, aggregators, and transporters.
The larger opportunity lies in extending the Central Region model to other agricultural and industrial areas. A nationwide rollout of Feed the Industries and the Youth in High-Value Crop Value Chain Programme is projected to facilitate more than 250,000 employment and enterprise opportunities.
At full capacity, the factory was projected to produce about 300 million packs of juice annually. That means pineapple leaving farms can pass through processing, packaging, branding, transportation, and retail before reaching consumers. Each stage creates additional economic activity that would otherwise be lost if agricultural commodities were sold mainly in their primary form.
Feed the Industries could turn Ghana's agricultural potential into industrial growth by getting more farms to supply factories, raising production, and taking more Ghanaian products to domestic and global markets. That is where the 24-Hour Economy can begin to deliver real-sector transformation.