A meeting with the Director.

Trey Milhoan posts the daily blog from Accra...

Today’s adventures started as they do every morning, about two hours later than scheduled. “The Ghanaians are great people, but on time they are not”. We departed the hotel at around 10:00 am and weaseled our way through Accra, arriving at the beautiful five star resort “Mövenpick”.  Our morning conversation with the hotels purchasing director really helped us understand the demand for high quality beef from the retailer’s perspective, reaffirming our efforts here. In fact, every person we've interacted with in Ghana has expressed that there is almost limitless demand in the current consumer marketplace.

Don't take that turn too fast, ya hear! 

       

We left the Mövenpick Hotel and rushed back across town to the American Embassy, just to learn that are closed on Mondays. So… we loaded back up, and went straight back across town to meet with the Ministry of Agriculture, Director of Livestock Production. Our discussions with the director revolved around the Aveyime Ranch and it’s future impact on the local community. Efforts to establish a profitable ranching enterprise on the ranch and educate area producers are our primary objectives, but this will ultimately result in imminent relocation for the ranches resident squatters.  Fences in Ghana are as abundant as unicorns and leprechauns! These undefined boundary’s result in frequent encroachment from surrounding producers who will simply turn up a piece of ground, plant their crop, and graze their livestock.

The Makola Market. Very Crowded! 

       

Observing the Ghanaian culture is captivating. There seems to be an “unspoken” understanding amongst the Ghanaian people, always knowing of each other’s personal space and acceptance of one another. “This is a good thing because if Americans drove like this, we’d all be toast”. The entrepreneurial spirit of the culture motivates people to utilize every bit of land for crops or cattle, no-matter whose land it may be.  Our mission is to help producers define their specific pieces of ground and maximize it’s productive potential, and like TCU preaches “manage the resources at hand in an ecological and economical manner”.

       

After a successful meeting with the director, we ventured through the nightmarish streets to the American Chamber of Commerce office where our fruitful visit concluded our workday.