In 2010, Nana Yaw Obeng immediately saw the potential of hermetic
technology to safely store grains and seeds. His vision is paving the
way to safer postharvest storage and organic preservation, not only in
Ghana, but throughout the continent.
A Postharvest Technology graduate of the Natural Resource Institute
in the United Kingdom, Nana returned to Ghana upon completion of his
degree and worked for the government. He started Agrimat, Ltd., as a
trader of agricultural inputs and machineries. It is through his
business that he found out about the GrainPro® SuperGrainbag®,
a hermetic liner bag with superior air and water barriers to stop
infestation and inhibit fungal growth without using chemicals.
Harvest season is a busy time for the Agrimat team when farmers flock
to buy these miraculous storage bags. Each farmer buys up to 10 to 15
bags at 8 Cedis, or less than US$2 per bag. Ivy Oduro Donkyi holds
Agrimat’s wholesale warehouse, where GrainPro bags are sold to retailers
from all over the countryside. Ivy is on her 14th year with Agrimat and
she confirms, “our clients are happy with the performance of the
SuperGrainbag and they keep coming back.” At the store, we find Dora
Bempong who’s been an employee for 20 years with Sophia Turkson, another
14-year employee. Dora says, “I also use the SGB at my house to store
rice and since I began using it, I’ve never had any infestation
problems.”
The liner bag isn’t the only hermetic solution Agrimat is offering. Tom de Bruin,
who visited Agrimat last month, explains that, "as the oldest and most
senior partner of GrainPro in Africa, Agrimat also sells Cocoons™,
which can hermetically store up to 1050 metric tons." They are piloting
a new government initiative to set up grain warehousing facilities that
will help smallholder farmers safely store their crops without the use
of chemicals. This puts them and hermetic storage at the forefront of
food loss reduction.
0 comments:
Post a Comment