An advisory board has been inaugurated for the Ghana Green Label Foundation, a body to certify locally produced fruits and vegetables to ensure that they are of high quality and safe for consumption.
The home-grown Green Label scheme will also check and ensure that fruits and vegetables produced locally are handled hygienically and could be traced from their point of origin till they get into the hands of consumers.
The initiative, which is to be operated through a private-public partnership programme and guided by the board, will ensure that there are incentives for fruit and vegetable producers who adopt improved safety and quality control measures in meeting accepted standards.
The nine-member advisory board is chaired, in the interim, by the Chief Executive Officer of Quinn Organics, Mr Samuel Nii Quarcoo.
Ghana lost about US$30 million in revenue between 2014 and 2017 as a result of a ban on its vegetable exports to the European Union (EU) market.
The ban followed the country’s non-compliance with EU standards on the export of vegetables.
To address the challenge, the government has adopted the Green Label initiative and made it a prerequisite for the export of agricultural produce, beginning from January 1, 2018.
