TheCable

EGTA Investment Limited, a Nigerian company, has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Jospong Group of Companies, a Ghanaian conglomerate, to boost food production in both countries.

The MoU, signed in Abuja on Saturday, covers the production of rice, wheat, soya beans, yellow corn, and sunflowers.

It also includes technical, financial, and investment cooperation, as well as training and capacity building for Ghana’s agriculture ecosystem.

According to NAN, the MoU was signed by Bashir Ibrahim, group managing director of EGTA, and George Blavo, the lead coordinator of the rice project at Jospong.

Speaking at the signing ceremony, Ibrahim said the MoU was an important step in promoting investments in agriculture and advancing agricultural growth in Africa.

He said the two companies would work together to share best practices and develop new technologies to improve food production.

“It is on that basis that the ECTA delegation went to Ghana to negotiate this historic MoU; this led the ECTA delegation to Ghana and the Jospong delegation to Nigeria,” he said.

“So, the signing of this MoU is in line with that tradition. The future of Africa depends on this concept of cooperation, financial investment, technical, social, economic, political cooperation between African nations.”

On his part, Blavo said the collaboration was in line with Ghana’s agricultural agenda and would help to lift people out of poverty.

He said the private sector is playing a key role in Ghana’s agricultural development and that the MoU would further strengthen the partnership.

Also present at the signing ceremony, Eddison Agbenyegah, Ghana’s deputy high commissioner to Nigeria, said his country sought to learn best practices from Nigeria, which had since become a “rice superpower”.

He said Nigeria has become one of the leading producers of rice in Africa.

“We are all aware that Nigeria is the biggest producer of rice and the contribution of ECTA to this achievement is well known to all of us,” Agbenyegah said. 

“We are going to ride on the policies and business policies the federal government of Nigeria will reel out, to make this kind of cooperation easy and even more fruitful.

“We are happy to be partners in this private sector initiative in deepening rice production in Ghana.

“Ghana is hosting the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCTA) secretariat, therefore we want to deepen cooperation to propel regional growth.”

Meanwhile, Bello Goronyo, minister of state for water resources and sanitation, said Nigeria had made remarkable progress in rice production over the previous decade after banning the importation of rice.

He added that such a feat surpassed Egypt’s, with a yearly production of 5.8 metric tonnes of the staple.