GNBCC Company Visit To Agriterra

19-07-2024

GNBCC Company Visit To Agriterra

On Thursday, July 11, GNBCC staff members Barnabas K. Apom and Benjamin Agamah visited Agriterra as part of our ongoing effort to interact with and better understand our growing membership base. Erwin Brouwer, Regional Manager for West Africa, warmly welcomed the team. The meeting began with introductions, where Erwin introduced the GNBCC team to his colleagues Jemima and Eugene, Country Project Managers and Senior Cooperative Advisors, and Frank, Cooperative Advisor, among others. The team explained that the purpose of the visit was to reacquaint GNBCC with Agriterra's activities, expectations, and experiences, following Agriterra's return to GNBCC after a few years of absence.

Erwin shared his satisfaction with becoming a premium member of GNBCC while providing an overview of Agriterra's business. He stated that Agriterra is an international, not-for-profit agri-agency that works in emerging and developing countries. Created about 25 years ago by Dutch farmer organizations and cooperatives, Agriterra promotes worldwide peer-to-peer agricultural collaboration and support. He added that Agriterra specializes in working with cooperatives because professional cooperatives and farmer organizations are critical for long-term economic development. Cooperatives, in addition to being engines of progress, lead to a stable and productive agri-sector and economy by strengthening farmer ownership and creating job opportunities in agri-service provision.

Erwin highlighted two of Agriterra's ongoing programs. The "Farmer Focused Transformation" program which is geared towards business development, cooperative management, access to finance, and lobbying and advocacy and the "Acting Now" program which focuses on food and nutrition security, sustainability, and agro-ecology, aiming to reduce reliance on imports. Both programs are financed by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In addition to these programs, Agriterra partners with several private sector companies that fund its services in strengthening supply cooperatives, particularly in the shea and cocoa industries. This collaboration creates a win-win situation for both farmers and companies by enhancing supply chains. In Ghana, Agriterra focuses its efforts on the cocoa, shea, and horticulture sectors.

Barnabas and Benjamin in the same regard provided insight into one of GNBCC’s projects, the Horticulture Business Platform (HBP), which piqued the Agriterra team's interest as it laid out several avenues for joint effort considering these projects and efforts are clearly intended to help Ghanaian farmers and agribusinesses by providing capacity building, financial support, and market access.

Both parties discussed potential areas for collaboration, such as knowledge transfer through joint events, shared resources for farmer training programs, and coordinated efforts to possibly influence agricultural policies.

The meeting concluded with a mutual agreement to maintain open lines of communication and explore specific collaborative efforts. GNBCC assured Agriterra of their continued support and encouraged them to actively participate in upcoming events and initiatives.

Click here to learn more about Agriterra.

 

GNBCC | News