AGRA to lift two million Ghanaians out of poverty by 2020

The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) has set a vision of success in lifting two million Ghanaians out of poverty by end of year 2020 through its agricultural investments.

AGRA Country Head, Dr. Kwasi Ampofo, says the Alliance’s interventions in Ghana are geared towards growing the overall food production by ensuring smallholder farmers, especially women, benefit from the process.

This will be achieved through the sustainable use of high quality seeds of improved crop varieties, use of fertilizers and integrated soil fertility management technologies, according to Dr. Ampofo.

The target, he says, will also demand an enabling policy reforms that increase productivity of staple food crops, access to organized markets and doubling the income of farmers from the sale of surpluses produced.

“The results that we want to achieve are high impacts including the percentage of rural population that falls below the poverty line in Ghana,” he said.

Over the last seven years, AGRA has spent $40million in support of agricultural development in Ghana and is looking at spending $65million from 2014-2020.

Ghana’s agricultural sector has enjoyed a steady growth in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) over the past five years, but the country faces constraints in the areas of climate change, inadequate agricultural research and development, limited access to inputs and lack of agricultural finance.

“The yield gaps of major crops are very high,” observed Dr. Ampofo. “Research has come up with new crop varieties with high yield potentials but we are unable to harness this potential to increase yield”.

He stated that AGRA will continue to work in integrated value chain systems looking at markets, soil fertility, gender empowerment, innovative financing, improved quality seed production and organizational support.

AGRA has in the past focused its investments in the Northern bread basket areas but under its new strategy, working in line with the Government of Ghana’s four identified key bread baskets – Northern Ghana, Volta, Afram Plains and Accra Plains.

AGRA sees itself in a position of high comparative advantage to support release of variety release and delivery systems, strengthen soil fertility management and input system, strengthen grain value chains for improved market access and engage in innovative financing for farmers to access, said the Country Head.

The implementation strategy focuses on integrated programmes and relationship building to deliver high impact country level visibility.

Dr. Ampofo expects partner institutions in Ghana to internalize the ideas and generate ownership of interventions to transform the country’s agriculture.

Story by Kofi Adu Domfeh