…sets to begin cashew auctions this July
The Ghana Commodity Exchange (GCX) has created a wider market reach for 320,000 smallholder farmers across the country, with access to quality commodities for both local and international consumers and fair pricing mechanism for farmers, Tucci Goka Ivowi, Chief Executive Officer of the exchange has disclosed.
The onboarding of these farmers on the exchange, according to the GCX, has ensured standardization and has drastically reduced the risk of price manipulation by middlemen.
The increasing trade in cereals and grains has given the impetus to the GCX to venture into cashew sales due to demands from international markets.
Tucci Goka Ivowi, who was speaking to the B&FT at the Information Ministry’s meet the press series in Accra, said: “our success stories have prompted demands of other commodities from foreign markets.
Currently, there is a high demand for cashew from Vietnam and Burkina Faso and we are almost concluding processes to begin cashew auctions to meet these demands. This month, July, we will try to do a couple more cashew auctions and then we will prepare the commodity for next season probably via auction mechanisms as well,” she said.
While the GCX is excited on the feat and also optimistic on trading other commodities including fruits, vegetables, tree crops, gold and etc on the exchange in the near future, Mrs. Goka Ivowi explained that the current 320,000 farmers whose products are traded on the exchange, would further help to strengthen Ghana’s economy through agriculture and government’s ‘Planting for Food and Jobs’ (PFJ) policy.
The GCX is an electronic platform which operates with ten secured physical warehouses that are linked to the warehouse receipt system in the Central Depository, which in turn, is connected to the exchange’s payment and settlement platform.
These physical warehouses which are located in the Ashanti, Brong Ahafo, Northern, Upper East and Upper West regions, according to the GCX, has helped to reduce Ghana’s food postharvest loss rate from 40 percent to 1.5 percent currently.
This reduction, Mrs. Ivowi said was due to standardization and certification, quality and quantity guarantees of access to good storage. With the 320,000 farmers on board, the GCX has 220 clients, 116 brokers, 67 associate members (farmer-based organizations (FBOs), out-growers), 37 trading members, 22,000 SHF traded directly or through FBOs and 370,000 disseminated SMS.
The exchange has also formed some notable partnerships with ARB Apex Bank, the Venture Capital Trust Fund and others to create strategic financing schemes to farmers on the exchange.
