Ghana fruits not banned from international markets – Alhassan
The Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) has denied that fruits from Ghana have been banned from major international markets due to the negative impact of fruit flies and other plant pests and diseases.
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A Deputy Minister of Food and Agriculture, Dr Ahmed Yakubu Alhassan, told the Daily Graphic in Accra last Tuesday that Ghana was currently exporting fruits to Lebanon and some European countries.
He was reacting to a publication in the Tuesday, July 2, 2013 issue of the Daily Graphic that Ghana and 27 other African countries had been banned from exporting fruits to the United States, the European Union (EU) and other international markets in view of fruit flies invasion in those countries.
But Dr Alhassan said there was no such ban on Ghana, although he admitted that some of the fruits produced in the country did not meet international standards.
He said global trade arrangements required that MoFA, representing the government, would be informed of any ban imposed on the exportation of fruits from Ghana by any importing country.
“We haven’t had any such notification from the EU and other markets,” he said.
Dr Alhassan, however, indicated that currently the US market was not open to fruits from Ghana because Ghana could not meet its standards.
He said the standards included the production of fruits under screen houses or glass houses or irradiation exposure, describing those conditions as stringent and expensive.
According to the Director of the Plant Protection and Regulatory Services Directorate at MoFA, Mr Vesper Suglo, fruit flies were detected in Ghana in 2005, having invaded parts of Africa in 2003.
In 2010, the government established the National Fruit Flies Management Committee, made up of scientists, agriculturists and other experts, to deal with the problem.
Ghana was the first ECOWAS country to establish such a committee in line with a directive from ECOWAS to its members.
Dr Alhassan said the menace of fruit flies was a common problem in many African countries and so there was the need for regional collaboration to address it.
The deputy minister said GAPs required the registration and monitoring of farms, adding that MoFA would only recommend fruits from farms that applied GAPs for export.
He said the National Fruit Flies Management Committee had drafted a fruit flies action plan to help manage the menace of the flies.
In a related development, the Sea Freight Pineapple Exporters of Ghana (SPEG) says its checks with buyers of Ghanaian fresh horticultural produce in Europe do not indicate that fruit exports from Ghana have been banned.
“It is worthy to note that we are continuing to export fresh horticultural produce to Europe now,” SPEG said in a statement signed by its General Manager, Mr Stephen Mintah, and issued in Accra yesterday.
“This week, more than 400 tonnes of fresh pineapples and other fruits are being shipped to various destinations in Europe. The shipments are being done weekly,” it emphasised.
According to the statement, the reported ban of fruit exports from Ghana had given a false alarm to the international community “which will seriously and negatively affect already stressed farmers”.
By Kofi Yeboah/Daily Graphic/Ghana
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