The Ghanaian agriculture sector is characterized by smallholder farmers who farm on less than two hectares of land, according to the Ministry of Food and Agriculture. “Agriculture has been the principal sector for the development and growth of Ghana’s economy for decades and it still is a major contributor. It contributes somewhere in the region of about 30% to the GDP of Ghana. The main challenge is how we industrialize the process in order to scale and reap the fruits of the sector,” says Kwame Nkum, senior consultant at Nkum Associates. This is a challenge that Ghanaian entrepreneurs in the sector have been grappling with for years. On the one hand, the agriculture value chain is perhaps one of the longest in any industry. Also, there are interdependencies between one stage of the value chain and the next but, often, there is a lack of data between the two, which creates significant infrastructure challenges for the sector. For mechanical engineer cum farmer, Desmond Koney, these challenges represent an opportunity to innovate and find solutions that help improve the sector. As the CEO and Founder of Complete Farmer, a crowd farming platform that facilitates easy sourcing of quality farm produce through an African online market.
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