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

FOSS will undertake the exercise in partnership with the Nigerian company, Prime Atlantic Global (PAGI) Instruments.

This comes after several complaints from the European Union over substandard food produce that are exported from Ghana to the EU.

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

The European Union is the biggest market for the export of Ghanaian products especially food items.

According to figures from the European Union, Ghana exported goods worth €3.1billion pounds to the European Market in 2018.

However, the Union has since the beginning of 2019 issued more than 50 alerts on some produce from Ghana including pepper, in which it repeatedly warned Ghanaian authorities that the continuous smuggling of some substandard food items into the region would result in the blacklisting of food from Ghana.

The Ghana Standards Authority says it is taking steps to ensure that every product the country exports is tested.

This has become necessary after the Authority disclosed that only 5 percent of exported products from Ghana is tested while the remaining 95% is exported out of the country without the necessary testing.

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

Professor Dodoo however assured that his outfit and the FDA are working to reverse the trend. He also admitted that the testing processes needed to improve.

“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,” he stated.