Development of sustainable commercial pineapple value chain system for increased yield and income, and improved livelihood of smallholder farmers in Central Region of Ghana
Smallholder pineapple farmers face marketing, production, post-harvest challenges and also lack clean planting materials. Meanwhile, University of Cape Coast in Ghana has the capacity to generate knowledge and advanced technologies to make pineapple farming profitable. The overall goal of this project is to evolve an action research with students, scientists, lecturers, entrepreneurs and smallholder pineapple farmers to develop a sustainable commercial pineapple value chain to increase smallholder pineapple farmers’ yield, income and improve their livelihood.
The main expected outputs are identification of the problems, and issues associated with profitability and economic viability of commodities and activities along the pineapple value chain, establishment of mother gardens for mass production of planting materials, an out-grower scheme and mini processing plant for processing, packaging and marketing of pineapple. Development of curriculum and modules on profitable pineapple production along the value chain and on-farm demonstration plots to train TVETs interns.
The project employs an action research design to simultaneously assist in practical problem-solving and expand the frontiers of scientific knowledge, as well as enhancing competencies of respective actors in the pineapple value chain. Specifically, students, scientist, lecturers, entrepreneurs and smallholder pineapple farmer will use baseline survey, value chain mapping and analysis, tissue culture techniques and on-farm trials, experimentation, and out-grower scheme, demonstrations to implement the project.
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