Value chain analysis of the fishery sector in Ghana with focus on quality, environmental, social, sustainable, food safety, organic requirements and its compliance infrastructure
Ghana fish production from marine, inland reservoir and aquaculture sources has been fluctuating around 440,000 t over the last 10 years. Although there is strong growth in aquaculture production – MOFAD estimates that the production for aquaculture has risen from 5,000 t in 2000 to nearly 28,000 t in 2012 – it remains small and has not kept pace with the demand for fish in Ghana, estimated at about 1 million t. Women play a key role along the fish chain since the gender ratio is about 80/20 in the handling and grading, distribution, processing subsectors and 60/40 in marketing sub-sector while in the production it is 30/70 which reflects the predominance of males in this sub-sector only. For the foreseeable future, Ghana will therefore continue to import fish such as sardinella and mackerel to supplement the domestic supply. Among all the public institutions concerned with fishery product quality and safety and also export, the Ghana Standards Authority (GSA) emerges as a quality and safety reference, while at the same time being responsible for establishing the standards, conducting inspections, testing on accredited and proficiency proof equipment and certifying products and management systems. The Certification Division and the Inspectorate Divisions are in the process of obtaining conformity assessments for their domains.