The Ghana Commodity Exchange has added sorghum and sesame seed contracts to its electronic trading platform. This brings the total number of contracts to five – white maize, yellow maize, soybean, sorghum, and sesame. This is in keeping with the Exchange’s mission to promote standardisation of agricultural trading in the country; and also with its status as the first functional commodity exchange in West Africa. The Ghana Commodity Exchange seeks to push boundaries and break new grounds in the quest to move the country towards a brighter economic future through commodity value chains.
Much as it has with the maize and Soya bean value chain in Ghana, GCX aims to bring increased value to the sorghum and sesame seed by providing efficient solutions to the challenges that plague the country’s agricultural infrastructure with regards to these commodities.
The Exchange has listed these two commodities as a result of growing interest from farmers, traders and other value chain actors; and this provides a great opportunity for others to get involved in sorghum and/or sesame seed value chain activities so they can reap the potential benefits.
Both commodities have a high tolerance to drought which makes them viable investments with the capacity of sorghum to act as a substitute for barley, used in the brewery industry, makes it highly valuable on the international market; while sesame seed’s growth as an export product, particularly to China, North Africa and the Far East, makes it one of the most economically valuable crops used in the food and confectionery industries.
Engaging in trade with GCX is of immense benefit to Ghanaian buyers and sellers, as they get a fair and transparent price discovery process which allows them to determine the prices for their produce with a competitive market process through the GCX platform. This also allows traders to obtain the best price for their commodities through a reliable and equitable market.
Ghana Commodity Exchange would grade and standardise both sesame seed and sorghum according to international standards thereby meeting export standards. This standardisation would provide traders of both commodities the opportunity to reach international markets, with GCX assuring quality. These innovations give farmers the chance to further enhance the value of their produce and make it a much more attractive option on the international market.
The launch of sesame seed and sorghum trading by GCX is a significant step and is only the next step and another contributor towards making Ghana the hub of agricultural trade in West Africa.
