Catherine Wambugu (right), an apple farmer attends to her fruits. There is need to strengthen advocacy for smallholder farming on the continent.
A shared ambition to transform agriculture would be the only way to stem the tide of Africa’s dependence on imports.
The conference was sponsored by TrustAfrica, an advocacy organisation.
The future of food security and sufficiency in the world depends principally on what Africa does with its agriculture and especially with the involvement of its young people.
Apart from the limited participation of the youth in agriculture, the delegates outlined and discussed a number of other reasons farming tends to stagnate in Africa.
As part of an effort to help address the skills gap that has been a challenge in the cashew Industry in Africa over the years, the 8th edition of the master Training programme on cashew value chain promotion has opened in Ghana. The programme is to increase theoretical knowledge and help enhance practical skills of African cashew experts to further promote the competitiveness of cashew in Africa.
The UK Foreign Office business delegation sign deals worth £82m in Nigeria and Ghana that will see up to 1600 new jobs created and agriculture transformed in Ghana.
An agriculturist, Mr Ismail Olawale, on Monday said local farmers in Nigeria might not be ready to practice hydroponic farming system in spite of its multifaceted benefits.
The Birifor Women Association (BWA), in the Sawla-Tuna-Kalba district of the Savannah Region has appealed to the government and other development agencies to assist them with modern farm implements. The appeal was made during the 7th Annual Congress of the Association in Kalba in the Sawla-Tuna Kalba district of the Savannah region under the theme, “Nursing the Baby Savannah Region through Agriculture and Formal Education”.
As part of the effort to help to improve poultry production, Amplified Ghana has embarked on series of demonstrations to teach poultry farmers the right feeding methods in order to reduce cost and make maximum profit.
The country’s fishing sector’s abysmal performance over the years has deepened, as data released by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) for the fourth quarter of 2018 show the industry’s growth has again contracted.
The Co-operative Development Foundation of Canada and Fertilizer Canada have partnered to advance sustainable agriculture in Ethiopia, Ghana and Senegal as part of the 4R Solution Project.
The Board of Directors of the Agriculture Fast Track Fund (AFT) of the African Development Bank (AfDB) have approved US$23 million grants to support agribusiness Small-and-Medium- sized Enterprises (SMEs) in eight African countries.
The multi-donor Trust Fund is being supported by the governments of the United States of America, Denmark and Sweden through their development agencies-United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA) and Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA).
Each of the beneficiaries would receive between US$100,000 and US$1.5 million towards the preparation of agriculture infrastructure projects and financing or advisory services for agribusiness expansion purposes.
The projects are supposed to be implemented within six months and finance upstream work of project design, including feasibility studies, business plans, product and process certification, market analysis, as well as aid them to conduct environmental and social impact assessment.
The beneficiary SMEs were drawn from Ghana, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal and Tanzania to increase food production, gender empowerment and create jobs in Africa.
The AFT since its inception in 2013 has been administered by the Agriculture and Agro-Industry Department of the AFDB and approved 36 grant projects, mostly private-sector sponsored agribusiness SMEs.
At the launch of the newly-approved grants, projects under the auspices of the AFT in Accra on Wednesday, Mr Yaro Baldeh, the Country Manager of the AfDB, in an address read on his behalf, said the Bank’s ambition to support agriculture transformation in Africa was pivotal towards eliminating extreme poverty by 2025.
He said the grants projects were at the heart of the Bank’s Feed Africa Strategy, intended to end hunger and malnutrition on the Continent, make Africa a net food exporter and propelling Africa to the pinnacle of export-oriented global value chain.
Therefore, it was prudent to harness the full potential of Africa’s agriculture and that the AFT was playing a unique and purposive role to support the development of a strong pipeline of “bankable” agriculture infrastructure projects, he said.
Out of the 17 projects, four would be implemented in Ghana while the remaining 13 would be rolled out in seven other eligible countries and those projects were competitively selected based on applications the AFT’s Technical Review Committee received from October to November 2018.
Dr Jonas Chianu, the Coordinator of the Agriculture Fast Track Fund, said a total of 1,022 entries were received by the AFT Technical Review Committee and after rigorous technical evaluation 17 projects were selected for support.
He said the funds would support SMEs in poultry farming, cultivation of seeds, irrigation farming and other interventions and expressed the conviction that the projects would positively impact on job creation, gender empowerment and improve agriculture infrastructure.
Mr Emmanuel Fordjour, the Head of the African Development Bank Unit at the Finance Ministry, said the support from AfDB to the SMEs was commendable and the Bank must be encouraged to do more since it would boost agriculture production and improve food security in Africa.
One of the grantees, Mr Gebriel Galatis, the Country Director for the Canadian Feed the Children, an Ethiopian NGO, said the support from the Bank would enable the Organization to undertake irrigation farming to promote food security, especially in the southern part of Ethiopia, which was ravaged by protracted war.
It would also empower women and young girls to undertake agribusiness and process tomatoes locally for sustenance of the local economy.
Another grantee, Mr JohnCarl Dunyo Kwame, Product Innovation and Distribution Manager of the Farmline, a Ghanaian agriculture company, said the funding would empower them to construct more warehouses to preserve cocoa beans in the Upper West, Brong Ahafo and Ashanti regions.
As part of the launch, a workshop was organized for the grantees and to familiarize themselves with the overall AFT operations and provide information on the processes, procedures and tools required for effective and smooth implementation of the projects.
