Fidelity Bank Ghana has called on stakeholders in the agriculture sector to prioritise financing across the entire agricultural value chain to enable the country to retain more value and wealth from its agricultural production.
The Bank said Ghana’s drive towards agricultural self-reliance should go beyond increasing production to include greater investment in aggregation, processing, packaging, logistics and other activities that added value to farm produce.
The call was made at the Ghana Horticulture Expo 2026, held on the theme: “From Soil to Sovereignty: Building Ghana’s Agricultural Self-Reliance Through Innovation.”
Fidelity Bank, a long-standing partner of the Expo, participated in various sessions focused on agriculture, financing and value addition.
Delivering an address on behalf of Mr Julian Opuni, Managing Director of Fidelity Bank Ghana, Mr John-Paul Taabavi, Divisional Director, Corporate and Institutional Banking, said Ghana’s agricultural exports generated about US$710 million in 2025, while cocoa paste alone generated about US$789 million during the same period.
“Both were produced from the same soil, the same country, the same growing season,” he said.
“Yet the value of a single product exceeded the value of an entire category of agricultural exports. The difference lies largely in what happens after the harvest.”
Mr Taabavi said agricultural sovereignty did not necessarily mean producing everything domestically, but rather ensuring that Ghana controlled a greater share of the value created from its agricultural resources.
He said that would enable more income to remain within the domestic economy and create opportunities for Ghanaian businesses to participate in the wealth generated along the value chain.
With non-traditional exports reaching about US$5 billion in 2025 and Ghanaian products reaching 152 countries, he said the major challenge was no longer demand but the capacity to move from production to aggregation, processing and value addition.
Mr Taabavi identified inadequate cold storage and aggregation facilities, limited processing and packaging capacity, logistics challenges, quality standards and certification requirements, unreliable energy supply and limited access to appropriate financing as key constraints.
He also challenged the perception that agriculture was inherently risky, saying innovative financing structures could help reduce some of the risks associated with agricultural lending.
“We often say agriculture is risky. But is agriculture inherently risky or are we sometimes creating risk through the way we choose to finance it?” he asked.
He advocated financing models based on production cycles, verified transactions, credible off-take agreements and warehouse receipts, instead of relying solely on conventional collateral requirements.
Mr Taabavi cited the Fidelity Export Club, established in 2023 in partnership with the Federation of Associations of Ghanaian Exporters (FAGE), as an example of the Bank’s value-chain financing approach.
He said the initiative currently supported more than 400 exporters and farmers through the BRIDGE-in-Agriculture programme, implemented in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation, alongside the Bank’s broader SME financing channels.
He said Fidelity Bank had disbursed more than GH¢160 million to FAGE members, while businesses within the Bank’s SME portfolio had generated approximately US$40 million in foreign exchange inflows by the end of July 2026.
Mr Taabavi said the Bank, which had partnered the Ghana Horticulture Expo since its inception, remained committed to financing value chains that created jobs, expanded exports and promoted shared prosperity.
“Sovereignty is not created at the farm gate. It is created when innovation, investment and enterprise transform what comes from our soil into lasting national prosperity,” he said.
Mr Alex Amponsah-Agyei, Director of SME Banking at Fidelity Bank, said the Bank was deliberately working to de-risk agricultural lending through partnerships with the Ghana Incentive-Based Risk-Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (GIRSAL), the eco.business Fund, the Mastercard Foundation and Development Bank Ghana.
He said the partnerships had enabled the Bank to provide financing at a total cost of seven per cent under the Mastercard Foundation’s BRIDGE-in-Agriculture initiative and accept farmland as security, representing a shift from traditional lending practices.
“If you want to look at farming and aggregation and export, then you need to look at the entirety of the value chain,” he said.
Mr Amponsah-Agyei said financing should cover the various stages of production and export to prevent businesses from facing funding challenges at critical points in the value chain.
“It cannot be that you have funded the customer, the goods get to the port, and suddenly there is a letter of credit issue,” he said.
Mr James Orraca-Tetteh, Head of SME Segment Banking, said partnerships were critical to transforming the way financial institutions supported exporters and agribusinesses.
“Where we are going, we have to be more creative than the traditional way, and that is what some of these partnerships offer,” he said.
He cited the Fidelity Young Entrepreneurs Fund as an example of ring-fenced concessionary financing combined with structured capacity building to support young people and women in agribusiness.
