41-year-old Felix Kamassah, a former economist, is now a producer and exporter of vegetables in Ghana. The Chief Executive Officer of Maphlix Trust Farm, left the banking sector in 2010 for vegetable farming in the Ketu North District of the Volta Region and has since turned some teachers in the locality into farmers.
His farm sprawls across 1,900 acres of land producing vegetables such as sweet potatoes, tomatoes, cucumber, okra, and marrow vegetables. The vegetables are cultivated on both open fields and in 38 greenhouses.
The Maphlix Trust Farm exports its raw vegetables - potatoes and okra to Europe – the United Kingdom and Germany. In the first half of this year, the farm exported over 180 tonnes of potatoes.
The CEO says they developed the market for okra during the lockdown period and are working hard to meet demands from Europe. The farm grows its tomato, cucumber and tender summer squash under greenhouse conditions and working towards the construction of a packhouse to develop more markets.
Mr Kamassah says as a way of giving back to the community, the farm had built toilets, boreholes and health facilities for some of the communities and supported the outgrowers with quality planting materials. Though Ghana's primary vegetables yield fluctuated substantially in recent years, it increased through the 1970 - 2019 period ending at 65,773 hg per ha in 2019.
Therefore, efforts by Maphlix Trust Farm to help scale up vegetable production in Ghana deserves commendation from all as it prepares to take advantage of opportunities under AfCFTA to reach markets on the continent.
Read the complete article at www.businessghana.com.