 This is a sad story of people living in Asable in the central region of Ghana where their major source of income is planting oranges but at the moment there are no bias of the oranges therefore the oranges are left to rot. Look at where I am standing, every single orange that you see my feet on is rotting. I mean it's left to rot because no one is buying at the moment. But guess what, two people decided to come together and change that narrative. This is why I keep on saying even though agriculture is the backbone of this country but value addition is something that I believe that so many Africans need to look into. This narrative needs to be changed and I'm so glad that two people have decided to put their heads together to change the story of the people living in this community. We welcome to our citrus value chain processing which begins from the farm through haulage to the factory to processing to the finished product. That's really incredible. You know I always said that agriculture is the backbone of Ghana's economy but added value actually has more power. That's what we're trying to do here because there was a pity state here so many years ago driving by we saw a lot of oranges later in the ground. We're wondering what's happening because oranges are much like oranges are expensive and so you wonder why there's so much orange. So we got into the story and then we know there were deeper insights to this story so you come into the enclave itself and you find that most of the farms have actually been abandoned. Because there's no major processor here so with all of these farms here you know they harvest and then a small percentage will go to the farms to the market. And then there are others that are waiting for buyers who are coming from as far as Côte d'Ivoire to buy them. It has its own challenges because by the time they get here if you've harvested one you've taken it off the tree so now it's begun its way down going bad. Then these people there's no contract so they set up from Côte d'Ivoire and they would just call you and say we're coming this week. So what do you have to do because they will not come to your farms you have to do all the harvesting and then dump by an aggregation site by the roadside. So by the time the guys come here it depends sometimes they don't come at all because they are moving their truck from Côte d'Ivoire and they are buying from all the way from western region to this point and beyond. So if they get full along the line then they leave you out there. So you go to the roadside and you see all that orange down by the roadside. So we thought they had to be in need to change this narrative. Give value to it because there have been some attempts in the past that haven't worked. So we said okay let us take a learning from all that has happened in the past and then do something that's going to be sustainable and change the life of the people. And that's what we're doing. Can we give them a round of applause? Because you guys are really changing that narrative. Listen you all should need to do this for me first of all like this video and share this video so that all this can have a piece of this because I believe that what these guys are doing the world need to hear about it. I mean if I understand you all these farms especially where we are used to be abandoned. So how you see abandoned when you do a reclamation you have all these creepers and other plants cohabitant with the citrus. So once we take over your farm we go under an agreement, a ten year agreement to manage your farm for you. There's an agreed price to pay if you are doing it on your own. So we do that and then we introduce the professionals to do all the cleaning, do all the agronomic practices so that the yield will come up. Some of these things are well over 30 years old. So if you don't give them the best of agronomic practices you will not have the fruitings. But I believe that at the end of the day you are empowering them because coming here is definitely a struggle. When you harvest you have to carry it on your head to get to the roadside. So I'll give you the scenario. So this is where we came from is about four or five kilometers. Okay so the road was bad because this was just a path. So what you see here used to be just a path that we used to get to the farms deep down here. So we brought in as part of our social community social impact program some graders to be doing this road work. So in all in these communities we've done close to 200 acres of these roads that go into the debts of the farm. So we can have access to the citrus that is stuck here in the farms. So that's what we've been doing and we keep expanding. What do you mean citrus stuck in the farm? Okay so these farms are deep into the bush not close to the community and it costs them so much to harvest and send to the roadside which is referred to as the aggregation point from where the buyers will come to get them. Normally the unfortunate thing is that they get to the roadside and then these buyers some don't come, some don't come on time and all of that. So at the end of the day you have a lot of oranges stuck by the roadside and going bad. So the farmer loses one on the farm itself when he fruits and he has to do harvest. They will shed some here because they go bad. Then what they carry to the roadside they will have to pay for it upfront. So they keep paying and waiting for whoever the buyer is. By the time the buyer gets here 40% of it has already gone bad. So they lose. So I mean it is no wonder that they abandoned the farms. You know what I don't believe you. I just need to see one abandoned farm and also get an owner of a farm and just talk to them so that I will get the rest. I mean sometimes when interview entrepreneurs like they will tell you all the sweet words. But for me to confirm my sweet words I need to meet one person who used to own a farm. Mummy what happened to you? What happened to you? How many years now? I don't know how many years have passed. How many years have passed? How many acres? 20 acres. How many years have passed? How many years have passed? I have no children. My children are children's parents. How many years have passed? How many years have passed? How many years have passed since you were married? ആഴി അഗbaiിിാടാ eschനന�� benefit കന�atreചക� subtitനിസ�olina കിിലികഞുറ versa allow them to be peaceburg-ified ഗാലുാ, as compared to Qatar, have never existed but if I do leave this house for me , Duck ép gray. കരിനികലനി�提 CayND when you leave this house  inscription on the ring                                                                                                                                                                                                                           So the moment we saw how the origins were done by the roadside, we thought something should be done and what could be done was to bring in a processor to take care of these so that we don't get to this stage. So we don't get to this stage. How do you feel right now? You know that you've created something for people like this? So I feel fulfilled only that I am yet to get to that point where there will be zero challenge but we'll get there soon. You know what? All my life, I never knew that it's possible to grow passion fruits in Ghana. To the extent that I saw my first ever passion fruit in Kenya. I never knew they got it right here in Ghana. Right here. So as you can see, we have passion right here because we use passion for an eski, one of the varieties that produces that we do. What we do is to grow everything we use for the juice. So we grow passion. But this is so huge. I mean the ones that I saw in Kenya were smaller. Okay so one secret about this is that we've given them very good agronomic project so you can see the spacing. Okay so what it does is that it gives the plants more space to show out their flowers. You know their flowers should get pollinated by the butterflies. So when you give them spacing like this, the butterflies come and then all the flowers are exposed to the pollination process. Instead of keeping them close, where some flowers will be hidden under the leaves etc. So when they are all open and they get pollinated, then they get the fruits. What is the size of the whole passion fruit plantation? So this one we have other sites but this site has 360 acres. Wow of passion yes. So it's like different sites. It's not just one place. No so you don't want to do all at one point so that if there's a problem at that point everything goes down. So we have different sites that we said that we have a 400 acre on one side we had a 200 acre on another side this is a 360. You guys don't want to make coconut juice? No so we'll get there because we'll get to another point where we are planting coconut because we're doing juices out of coconut. But these are very old coconut trees like over aged coconut trees from which we now have to get these planks. These two by four planks that we are using all over the place. So this way from the old coconut trees that we found here, those that have arrived and used them. Instead of just dumping them and burning them, we turn them into these two by four wood for the other planks we are using for the passion fruit. All that you see here are either the coconut or bamboo that we can find here so you see bamboo all over the place. Wow that's really innovative. Utilization of the resource. I never knew you can actually get two by four wood from here. Sure. This is very good wood that some people use for building. Really yes. I guess this is what you're talking about. Sure. These are rots in orange. Yes they are. Very sad. Because this place was abandoned as I mentioned so when it fruits and it gets ripe it just drops to the ground. So this for example is a reclaimed farm. So after reclaiming then we can get what is remaining on the trees while we proceed with the agronomic practice. So from next year we're going to get the best of fruits coming from this side. I guess this is how a typical abandoned orange farm looks like. Because I can see a ripe orange out there. Definitely. This has been abandoned for about eight years. Eight years? Yes. And you know the citrus farmers had no hope any longer even attending to their fans. So they even started cutting them off until we set in. That's it. So we are bringing them hope after we are... Before you set in this road looks new. Yeah. Are you guys... It's part of our project. Yeah because we need to have access to our farms. Yeah because they have it even difficult when they even harvest those farms. They have it difficult to transport them to the roadside for buyers to come for them. So we need to create access routes to almost all our farms so we can do proper harvesting. See this is money. See there are inserts in it coming out. I want to say God bless you guys for giving hope to the people of this village. And also empowering them because I see young people working in there. I see a woman that I interviewed who was so happy that the fact that her farm is now back to life. So in total how many acres of orange farm have you guys claimed so far? So now we have about 5000 registered acres estimated. All the 5000 were abandoned. They were all abandoned because the farmers have absolutely no hope. Because when they harvest and put them by the roadside, the buyers will take them two weeks, one month before they come. By the time they come everything is already rotten. So they decided not to waste their resources. Look they will employ people to go and harvest. The employ people to go and carry the food to the roadside. And the buyers will not come. So that cost also goes to them. So in the fact they decided not to even attend the farm at all. So they total abandoned most of the farms. But once we are in, they are full. They are full. Does it mean that the same company employs these people? Sure so we have given life to these youth who ordinarily were not even interested in the farming. Because they have seen their parents as citrus farmers all their lives. And then the impetus is about zero. So now when we came in, we trained them. So these are guys we have trained. Many of whom were not even interested in agriculture at all. But they use machinery. So we get to one point and you see how they use machinery to do the weeding. And all of that they are spraying, they are pruning. So a lot more are coming on board to work as our gang teams here. And some on their own parents farms. So their parents get paid for the oranges. And then the youth also get paid for working on the farms. It's part of the model we are building. But this is really sad. And I'm so happy the fact that you guys brought this initiative to change lives in here. Is it so many oranges? It's a sad story here. But the narrative has changed. And it's going to change some more when they come in here. I guess like in so many areas in Ghana, we need value addition. When we take the primary product into the market, we are not doing anything. What we have to do is to give it a new life by taking it through value addition. So we have to go through the full value chain from agronomy right through production to the shelf. And that's what we are doing here. I'm not seeing a factory around me. So we are setting up a 15 ton per hour factory here in Asebu and Cleve to take care of all of these and more. Can you please take me there? So Maya, this is a game changer. For all that you saw, this is where we are going to do our production. This is a 15 ton per hour processing machine. We are going to process orange juice here. And more to that, we are going to process citrus oil here in this factory. And that's going to change, complete the cycle of the change of the narrative in Asebu. You don't think there's going to be more orange farmers now? So that's the story now. So when we began, there was this wait and see attitude from the farmers. When we brought in our farming management scheme, people were like let's wait and see. But now every day, every hour there's a knock on our door that we want to join. So as we told you, we're working on about 6,000 acres for now. But we have a request for more and more. Very soon we're going to take down a lot of the trees that are very old. So as you saw from the nursery, we are bringing in new variety, new trees to give new life to the citrus industry and to this Encleve. But why this Encleve? So this has been an Encleve that does oranges for God knows how long. It's been so long. This is known as an orange Encleve. So we do orange, lime, lemon, tangerine, all of that here in this belt. Stretching from Asin Fusu right down to this point and then off to Commander area. This is a citrus Encleve. Now we thought, I mean doing citrus, you can only site your factory in the Encleve. Bringing production close to the farmers. Believe me or not, this definitely worth a lot of money. You know, I told the rich people in Africa dress so simple. And they don't brag, you know, that's how they have me. But I just want to know, yeah. Did you guys fund this one too? Okay, so for this we got funding from the Agriculture Development Bank, ADB in Ghana to set up this factory. I believe that the bank trusted you because of your track record. Sure. Sure. So with a kumfi angle, I mean we have not shown what we can do. Okay. And what we can do with fruits, giving them value to the park that we saw. So we as a kumfi decided to consult for Central Citrus and this is the result. I believe that ten years to come we have so many of these factories across Ghana. Sure. What we have to do now is to share our experience as much as possible to grow many of these. Because we are still not filling the shelves. There is still so much space for occupation. The shelves are still welcoming foreign products, et cetera, that we need to take also. We are encouraging a lot of these to come up and we are willing and ready to join up. I believe the goal is to make sure that we no longer consume foreign goods in the country. So what we are doing is to give of the world best, which is also equally best for Ghana. So what we are putting out there is juice, which is juice in the real sense of the word. Juice should be an extract of the fruit only. No additive, no conservative. So that has been our business philosophy and that is what we are trying to spread out. So very soon we are going to have all these juices from Ghana that are zero preservative, zero concentrate, zero whatever with no drop of water, the syrup of the fruit itself. So when we say juice, we mean juice. What do you think is going to happen when we have more of these value addition factories in the country? So first of all the health of the people, which is important to us is paramount. Second is job creation. Third is value addition so that when we have to even export some of these things as we gain also foreign access to balance of the economy. So what we are doing here, you can see the construction is ongoing. A major part of the machines are already installed as we finish up here. So here we have a water bath where our fruits will come in here. We treat the fruits like human beings. When we detach them within a few hours it has to come through this water therapy. So water therapy is what cools down the temperature is like a baby coming from the mother. The umbilical cord has just been broken. So this is just what we are going to have. I believe this is bigger than a kulfi factory. Sure, sure, this is far bigger in terms of the capacity. Although kulfi is also building its capacity more than it is. But as this one stands, it is one and a half kulfi size in terms of the production capacity and even the working area. What is the size? Okay, so this one is doing around 6,000 square meters whereas a kulfi is doing 5,000 square meters. But in terms of production capacity, a kulfi is doing 10 tons per hour but this is doing 15 tons per hour. When do you think the factory will be running? So the first point of installation has been done. We need another 60 days to complete the installation. So give or take by October we should be running. When I spoke to the farmers, they told me that the contract has already been signed. Which means that you guys are already producing using here or using the other side. So what is happening is that this extractor is ready. So at least we can juice here and sell the juice to another producer. But this company will also be doing its own juice. So that is when you have a full complement of the machinery. So for now we have the contract, we still do the harvesting and we bring them here to process only the juice. So we can sell the juice. That's really impressive. I can't wait to come here to see workers in here. What is in here? I'm so glad to be the first blogger in here. So you guys should appreciate him by liking this video. I want to say thank you so much for talking to me and I'll see you next time. Thank you.