President of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), Dr Agnes Kalibata Adams, has expressed the commitment of AGRA in supporting an additional 1.2 million smallholder farmers in the country.
According to her, in the last five years, AGRA has continued to invest intensively across Africa and in Ghana. During that journey, she indicated that her outfit has worked closely with the government to understand and move forward on policy improvements within the seeds sector, policy improvement with regards to regional food trade, improving fertilizer distribution and availability.
Furthermore, Dr Adams noted that AGRA has worked extensively with the ministry of food and agriculture (MoFA) on the extension service availability through community-based advisors.
Speaking at the ongoing AGRA 3.0 strategy launch today, June 21, 2023, Dr Adams stated that she reckons the relationship with government as a critical partnership in creating the enabling environment for policy and sectorial growth. Also, she highlighted the essence for the desirability of investment in Ghana is critical to agriculture.
“We have committed to supporting an additional 1.2 million smallholder farmers in Ghana to move out of subsistence farming into small commercial farming. We don’t want to see these farmers struggling from hand to mouth; we want to see them planning, buying the right types of crops, fertilizers and inputs…”
Dr Agnes Kalibata Adams
Commenting on the engagements with relevant stakeholders over the years, Dr Adams noted that another area AGRA has been very actively working on is the investment strategy for agriculture. With this, she stated that it has worked with the private sector as it is a crucial driver of the economy, with farmers at the forefront.
“But private sector is challenged by a lack of finance, risk mitigation, insurance and this is another area we’ve worked actively with the government, to improve the agriculture insurance policy sector. This is something which is actually critical as we move into a climate risk environment with increasing volatility, changes in rain patterns, unknown weather variants affecting cocoa and rice sector…”
Dr Agnes Kalibata Adams
Strategy of AGRA in transforming Ghana’s agriculture sector
On her part, program officer of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), Regina Aku Richardson, revealed that today’s theme for the launch which is ‘Improving the competitiveness of agro-industries’, in emerging markets within the agro industry can and will only achieve higher levels of success with increased productivity.
As such, she explained that the strategy seeks to respond to weaknesses in agriculture food systems by unlocking productivity and trade. To achieve this, she noted that there is the need for quality inputs to unlock productivity on farmers’ fields with specific reference to quality seeds and quality fertilizers.
“We have worked with implementing partners notably government and private sector to enhance farmers access to quality input even at the last mile. We’ve also supported in enhancing farmers knowledge and awareness on improved varieties and appropriate agro-economic practices to enable them achieve optimum yields. So, together with partners we have also worked to strengthen input distribution system.”
Regina Aku Richardson
Last year in July 2022, she recounted that AGRA Ghana had the opportunity to work with MoFA and key stakeholders in the seed industry to assess the state of the seed industry. This work, she explained was carried out alongside other 10 African countries and the result of the assessment informs AGRA’s priority area for investment in the seed industry going forward.
Going forward, Ms Richardson highlighted that AGRA aims to contribute to building strong, efficient and robust system to give farmers access to appropriate, adaptable and high-yielding affordable varieties with climate-smart trait for sustainable farming practices.
Together with partners, she emphasized that her outfit will additionally support MoFA to rollout a seed investment plan that will support government.
“We will also rollout investments that will contribute to enhancing the seed policy environment by supporting the institutional architecture for planning and coordination of the seed industry. Investment that will increase adoption and utilization of certified seeds by farmers. Investment that will ensure strengthening seed quality assurance and also investment that will ensure farmers resilience through innovation and technology deployment of climate smart varieties. But we will do all these in the context of sustainable farming practices.”
Regina Aku Richardson
Moreover, AGRA Ghana’s program officer stated that the Alliance will rollout farming models such as crop diversification and regenerative agriculture that will enable smallholder farmers to achieve sustained yields even in the face of the emerging climate threat.
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