How ‘Bout Them Pineapples?

Jun 20th, 2009 11:32 PM UTC
By Tony Fratto

An on-the-ground post from Tony Fratto, who is among the delegation traveling through Ethiopia and Ghana this week. Learn more about the trip here.

Today we visited a first-class Ghanaian pineapple-exporting farm and processing facility about 2 hours west of Accra.

It’s an 1800-acre farm, Fair Trade certified, exporting to Europe.

The Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), a U.S. Government corporation designed to work with some of the poorest countries in the world, is helping to provide capital and trade credits.  The farmers act in a cooperative, and we had the opportunity to talk to farmers from five of the largest pineapple farms.  The farmers explained that the capital supports the investment in the processing facility, which helps the farmers to increase production and add value for exports.

An important part of smart, effective development — which ONE is encouraging — is to have well-integrated projects.  In this case, the MCC’s support for expansion of the N1 highway (a critical road that connects farmers to airports, markets and sea ports) is coordinated with efforts to expand agriculture production outside of Accra.  The expanded highway will significantly reduce the time and cost of bringing ag products like these pineapples to market, which will increase productivity and competitiveness, and in turn, returns to farmers.

-Tony Fratto

TAGS: Ghana, MCC, ONEREDTrip, ONEREDTripDay5