Green Afro-Palms (GAP)

Posted on Jan 14, 2018 in Mosaicque Ezine

Ababio Kwame,

Founder & CEO,

Ghana

 Green Afro-Palms (GAP) is a “young” sustainable agro-company, based in the Ashanti region of Ghana/ West Africa. The company has an innovative and scalable model that utilizes oil palm fruits from small scale farmers for producing oil palm oils for human consumption in a more affordable, quality and hygienic manner.

GAP has set up an improved processing agro-processing facility utilizing current technology, which was designed and fabricated by themselves with locally sourced materials, from Ghana-West Africa. They use this facility to provide tailored agro-processing services – Fast, Easy & Efficient, to small scale oil palm farmers in aiding them to efficiently get more oils from processing their harvests from farms, than their initial methods. This action of GAP is helping farmers make more money from their activities and GAP is getting more oils from the oil palm crops, to sell in the markets both locally and internationally.

Their processing activities produces crude palm oil (CPO), palm kernel oil (PKO) as well as palm fibre cake in more hygienic and sustainable manner with positive effects to the environment. In exhausting the value chain, the enterprise also assists small scale farmers in reviving their abandoned or mismanaged farms in Ghana, and advocates for sustainable oil palm production under their project dubbed Green the Palms-Africa (GTP-Africa). In this way, Green Afro-Palms (GAP) is creating a high social and environmental impact for the cultivation and processing of oil palm in Africa.

GAP’s agenda in reviving agriculture in Africa is done by their tailored actions for small scale farming specifically in oil palm. GAP searches for small scale oil palm farmers and adopt them to assist them in salvaging their undermanaged and abandoned farms using modern farming technologies and convert the yields from these farms into processing of oils which are then packaged and sold on both end-user and business markets in a more hygienic manner. Their actions has seen a revival in more than 300 small farmers’ activities; increasing the cultivation and processing of oil palm in Ghana, producing 200,000 litres of palm oils in last 24months. GAP is on the move to replicate this approach, in other sub-Saharan nations in Africa after full implementation in Ghana.

The young agro-company lead by young Ababio Kwame and 3 youth in its early stages within 2 years of its existence has been in tremendous action to increase food production in Ghana-West Africa, with their focus on ways of infusing technology (soft and hard) in conventional farming and agro-processingalso paying attention on streamlining marketing of final produces from farming. Their aim has been to implement best ways of cultivation and processing yields from farms to increase production and reduce post-harvest loss using improved processing technologies.

Their chosen path is in Oil palm cultivation and over the last two years they have accomplished the following:

Ø Completed one set of their improved agro-processing facility (locally designed and produced by themselves) which is in operations in Ghana -W/A.

Ø Provided improved palm oil milling services for over 200 farmers in Ghana with Farmers yielding three times oils than their initial methods of processing.

Ø Efficiently processed to-date over 1000 metric tons of palm fruits.

Ø Distributed and sold 200,000 litres of CPO onto the African market in their second year.

Ø  Won an outstanding contract (supply order) for CPO in bulk quantities in Ghana. ORDER Specification: “NO Limit Quantity”

Ø Up to 200 farmers benefited directly from their GTP-Project- that revives abandoned or mismanaged oil palm farms in Ghana.

Ø The company has been established and been in operations till now without any external source of investment.

 

 

 

 

Profile:  

Online: www.gapworld.org

www.facebook.com/greenafropalms

Videos:

https://youtu.be/_7XZPgFjm3k,https://youtu.be/D6u8QswD-3E

 

Their early stages activities have granted them some accolades:

  1. Founder was recently adjudged Winner of maiden Young African Agriprenueurs competition by African Development Bank-2017, Nigeria.

https://www.modernghana.com/news/774604/ghanas-kwame-ababio-wins-big-at-agric-show-african-youths.html

  1. The Founder was recently on 6th March 2017 ‘Ghana’s 60th Independence” awarded Future of Ghana 30 U30 Awards as first of 30 Young Ghanaians under 30 years making impact in the 2017 awards edition.
  1. Special feature by Founder’s professional trained University: https://goo.gl/5D8Keu
  2. The Founder was awarded RUFORUM African Young Entrepreneur -2016, South Africa. https://www.modernghana.com/news/730907/ghanas-ababio-kwame-of-green-afro-palms-wins-young-entrepre.html
  3. GAP was listed in Top 15 African Agric-innovations by RUFORUM Challenge-2016, South Africa.

https://ruforum.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/young-innovators-web.pdf

  1. Founder – was selected in President Obama’s YALI Nigeria Pioneering Cohort-2016, Nigeria.
  2. GAP is listed in 100 globally competitive start-ups-2016, Ghana.

http://thestartupnetwork.org/2016/03/07/100-globally-competitive-startups-in-ghana-by-tanoe/

  1. The Founder was – listed 40 Ghanaians under 30 years making impact-2015, UK.
  2. The Founder was adjudged: ADLER African Young Entrepreneur -2015, Germany.https://www.modernghana.com/news/660565/young-ghanaian-wins-adler-entrepreneurship-award-2015.html

 

The Founder – Young Ababio Kwameas part of his daily activities as the CEO of the company is also involved in research for the development of Agriculture in Africa. Regardless of his professional background as a Geospatial engineer, Kwame finds passion in Agriculture and its business. Below are some of his publications on Agriculture in Africa: