Industrialisation: The Ekumfi Juice initiative—a solution to the galamsey menace

Efforts to tame illegal mining, popularly known as ‘galamsey’, have clearly failed to yield results in the country – as the menace continues to attract a significant number of youths looking for a seemingly guaranteed way to quickly enrich themselves.

The act is being driven by current unemployment among Ghanaian youth, especially among university graduates, and is continually causing the destruction of perfectly arable lands, forestry and water-bodies. This invariably accounts for Ghana’s current difficulties in smallholder Agricultural Activities; and this has very adverse effects, causing multiple vulnerabilities in our rural areas.

To help alleviate some of these effects from galamsey, Ekumfi Fruits and Juices Limited – established under the One District, One Factory initiative – and its partners have been transforming the lives of some galamsey operators by signing them on to an alternative livelihood scheme.

This scheme has helped many galamsey operators in the Central and Eastern Regions of Ghana by providing them with the requisite training to carry out various jobs across the company’s value chain – from fruit production all the way to the marketing and sales of the company’s ‘Ekumfi Juice’ product on the local market.

The engaged ex-galamsey operators have been employed in various segments of the production line, such as the Ekumfi Fruits and Juices Ltd.’s unique shared-grower model for fruit cultivation, farm mechanisation, processing and packaging of the fruits, and also distribution and retail services.

According to the company’s management, multiple acres of land which galamseyers could have destroyed through illegal mining activities have now been fully dedicated to cultivating all-year-round pineapple fruit for processing at the Ekumfi Juice Factory.

Most of these beneficiaries are now able to support their families with sustainable and guaranteed wages from the company.

Ekumfi Fruits and Juices Limited is a Ghanaian-owned fruit juice company that specialises in manufacturing locally made 100% natural fruit juices at the Ekumfi district in the Central Region of Ghana.

The company was established under government’s flagship One-District-One-Factory (1D1F) initiative in 2019, and has created over 1,000 jobs in line with its aligned aim to alleviate poverty within the operational community and its neighbouring districts and regions.

Ekumfi Fruits and Juices can be confidently referenced as the largest natural-fruit processing factory in the West African sub-region, capable of producing approximately 200 tonnes of fruit daily.

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