Mathias Charles Yabe: Revolutionizing Ghana’s Agriculture Sector to Reduce Post-Harvest Losses
In a world grappling with the challenges of food waste and environmental sustainability, Mathias Charles Yabe, the CEO of Akofresh, has emerged as a visionary leader in Ghana’s food industry. Through his innovative use of solar-powered cold storage preservating technology solutions, Yabe is revolutionizing the way food is preserved, reducing waste, and ensuring a more sustainable future for farmers in Ghana.
Post-harvest losses have long been a significant challenge for farmers in Ghana, leading to economic losses, food insecurity, and wastage of valuable resources. However, Mathias Charles Yabe, the CEO of Akofresh, has emerged as a game-changer in the agricultural sector, implementing innovative solutions to tackle this pressing issue. Post-harvest losses have plagued Ghana’s agricultural sector for years, with estimates suggesting that up to 30% of harvested crops are lost annually. These losses occur due to various factors, including inadequate storage facilities, poor transportation infrastructure, lack of access to markets, and limited knowledge of proper post-harvest handling techniques. As a result, farmers face significant financial setbacks.
Mathias Charles Yabe, a Ghanaian entrepreneur and social innovator, who grew up in a small farming village in the eastern part of Ghana, experienced food insecurity and financial instability and In 2018, Mathias visited one of Ghana’s major tomato farming communities, where he met a 56 year old woman who took him around the farm, pointing out rotten tomatoes and sadly shared how hard she worked, yet lost one third of all her crops. This sad story inspired Mathias journey as a food system hero. He recognized the urgent need for a sustainable solution to address post-harvest losses in Ghana. This pressing issue led Yabe to start up Akofresh, a green agritech solution that is offering sustainable agricultural services, leveraging climate smart solutions for improved food security and ensure ecosystem resilience in local communities.
Mathias Charles Yabe launched an initiative aimed to help farmers reduce the issue of post-harvest losses and improve the livelihoods of farmers. The Solar-Powered Cold Storage preservation technology is an innovative approach that extends shelf life of perishable crops. This has helped to install decentralization solution that is helping an entire community of farmers to store their produce and prevent post-harvest losses by 50%.
The social and economic impact by Akofresh have improved the livelihood of farmers by creating several job opportunities for farmers in local communities.
