Mango fruits are a delicacy for many people. In some parts of the world the love for mango has earned it the nickname “yellow gold”.
However mango has not only generated love among people. It is a commodity that has also generated controversy. Oh, have you forgotten the brouhaha generated by comments from a politician that there were enough mangoes in Ghana for some Ghanaians claiming to be hungry due to government’s poor performance? This politician might have been aware of the quantity of mangoes that go to waste in Ghana every year.
Any controversy that this crop generates will end one day, but it will only end when the challenges that confront its producers also end! And the challenges will also only end if we implement projects and programs that help us to realize our beautiful policies on the ground.
Government Policy As part of the strategy to improve the country’s export-based growth, Ghana has pursued a demand-led exports growth since the mid-1990s. New opportunities in mango exports have emerged in the international market since that policy was pursued but the country hasn’t positioned itself to compete. To enhance Ghana’s comparative advantage and translate it into competitive advantage requires us to even more importantly producehigh quality mangoes of the needed volumes.
The potential for expanding domestic markets also exist as the economy expands and incomes grow. The capacity of commercial smallholders should be enhanced for them to produce for the international and expanding domestic markets, including agro-industry.
Ghana's agricultural sector policy points out the need for enhanced growth in incomes in the agricultural sector. The policy indicates unambiguously that enhanced incomes will reinforce food security through financial access to food.
There is need to diversify into cash crops in a more business-oriented fashion. There is also the need to add value to commodities being produced and to develop new products. It is also important that markets are found for existing, diversified and new products to ensure that incomes are increased and variability reduced from year to year within farming communities and between rural and urban areas.
Production Areas and Types of Farmers involved As at 2012, Ghana had a total of 31,661ac mango plantations with Brong Ahafo and Northern regions as the leaders. All these plantations are now either currently in production or are in their early stages of production.
Thanks to the cheap prices of mango seedlings these areas were mostly planted with good high yielding varieties. It is striking to note that 76% of the area planted to mango is owned by members of farmer-based organizations (FBOs) and unorganized individual farmers.
Nucleus farmers and their outgrowers own the remaining 24%. The outgrowers affiliated to nucleus plantations have their mature fruits easily sold to the nucleus plantations, which sometimes also export fruits and do processing of the fruits. The same cannot be said of members of FBOs and unorganized individual farmers who have to struggle to find buyers for their mature fruits.
Their farms are also scattered making it too expensive for buyers to move from one farm gate to the other to buy fruits. Many of these farmers carry the little they can to buying centres and leave many other useful fruits to rot on the farms. Pest problems have also reduced the market appeal of the mangoes produced by these farmers and this has made it even more difficult for mangoes to be exported from Ghana.
Pricing Prices of mangoes in Ghana is determined by demand and supply forces. In 2011, the price of 1kg of mango intended for the local market sold at farm gate for GHS 0.55. It increased to 0.90 in 2014.
The price for 1kg of mango of the grade sold to the international market at farm gate was GHS 1.20 in 2013 and GHS 1.40 in 2014. This exportable fresh mango was selling for GHS 1.70 as at April-May 2015, while those for processing and the local fresh fruit market sold for GHS 1.00 and GHS 0.75 respectively.
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