Ghana: Government of Denmark Supports in Food Safety Analysis

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Ghana – Through FOSS, a global provider of high-tech analytical solutions used mainly in the agricultural and food industries, the Government of Denmark is set to offer support to Ghana to improve the standard and safety of its produce through food analysis.

With the Nigerian company, Prime Atlantic Global (PAGI) Instruments FOSS will undertake the exercise in partnership. This comes after several complaints from the European Union over substandard food produce that are exported from Ghana to the EU.

Tove Dengnbol, the Danish Ambassador to Ghana, is hopeful the initiative if successful, will attract more investors from Denmark into Ghana’s agriculture sector.

For the Ghanaian products especially food items, the European Union is the biggest market for the export and according to figures from the European Union, in 2018 to the European Market, Ghana exported goods worth €3.1billion pounds.

Since the beginning of 2019, the Union issued more than 50 alerts on some produce from Ghana including pepper, in which it repeatedly warned it would result in the blacklisting of food from Ghana if authorities do not stops the continuous smuggling of some substandard food items into the region. But according to Ghana Standards Authority it is taking steps to ensure that every product the country exports is tested.

According to European Union, it has become necessary after the Authority disclosed that from Ghana only 5 percent of exported products is tested while the remaining 95% is exported out of the country without the necessary testing.

Prof. Alex Dodoo, Director-General of the Authority, disclosed this and blamed the situation partly on lack of communication and the delays in the testing processes.

However Professor Dodoo assured that his outfit and the FDA are working to reverse the trend. He also admitted that the testing processes needed to improve. He said, “There was a challenge as well in the past, the delays from us the agencies were too long. Now we are looking for solutions, that we can deliver on time because once it can be delivered on time, then you have no reason not to do what is essentially insurance for your goods which will ensure that funds are protected and you make the money that you expected.”