Ghana to benefit from African-wide cassava, wheat, rice and maize intervention

Ghana and 19 other African countries will directly benefit from the African Development Bank- funded initiative known as the Support for Agricultural Research for Development of Strategic Crops (SARD-SC).

The US$63.24 million project was approved in 2012 to be implemented by Africa-base research institutions.

Direct beneficiaries of the intervention include farmers in Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, DR Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

The multiplier effect of the project is however expected to affect other regional member countries in the continent.

“The project will have a positive spin off effect in the other member countries,” according to the Project Coordinator, SARD-SC, Dr Chris Akem.

Scientists, other stakeholders and policy makers say the initiative will help narrow the yield gap facing Africa’s strategic crops even as most countries on the continent embark on agricultural reforms.

Maize, cassava, rice and wheat are considered crops of strategic importance for Africa. Maize for instance is consumed by millions of people as either roasted or boiled and eaten off the cob or as dish prepared from raw or fermented flour.

Explaining the scope of the SARD-SC, the Deputy Director General in charge of Partnerships & Capacity Development, Dr Kenton Dashiell, said the project has several components including agricultural technologies and innovations generation, agricultural technologies and innovations dissemination, and sustainable capacity development.

To achieve the set goals, he emphasized partnerships among various stakeholders—farmers, input dealers, farmers, researchers, consumers etc.

He stressed that the overall objective was to enhance food and nutrition security, and contribute to poverty reduction.

The initiative is being co-implemented by three Africa-based centers under the CGIAR namely: the Africa Rice Center, the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), which is also the Executing Agency of the project.

The African Development Bank (AfDB) is hopeful the project would contribute towards addressing the current shortfall in food supply in the continent by working across the full value chain of each crop and addressing both food costs and employment creation. 

Through the value chain approach, SARD-SC will also contribute to crop-livestock integration based on the use of the commodities’ by-products.