Mr Namanga A. Ngongi, President of Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), on Friday said lack of appropriate policy programmes in Africa contributed to poor performance in agriculture.
He said there was the need for African leaders to draft a policy that would deal with how to support farmers to have access to equipment required in improving agriculture in Africa.
“There should be dialogue between farmers and administrators in the agriculture sector to discuss problems facing farmers and find lasting solutions to them,“ he added.
Mr Ngongi was addressing the media on the activities of AGRA in Ghana in Accra.
He said agriculture was the backbone of Ghana’s economy while smallholder farmers represented about 80 per cent of the total agriculture production.
Mr Ngongi said despite the overall economic growth over the past decade, the agriculture sector had declined from 51 per cent to 36 per
cent of Ghana’s Gross Domestic Product.
He said AGRA was working to increase the productivity, profitability and sustainability of smallholder farmers by driving comprehensive changes across the agricultural value chain.
Mr Ngongi noted that AGRA’S programmes and partnerships targeted problems facing smallholder farmers in Ghana through improving farmer’s access to good seed, fertiliser and sustainable farming practices to credit, crop storage and a strong farmer-based organisation.
Mr Kehinde Makinde, Country Officer of AGRA said the alliance had integrated programmes to improve farmer’s livelihood by working across the seed value chain to get good seed to farmers.
He said AGRA had supported private seed companies which multiplied and disseminated soybean, sorghum, maize, rice and groundnuts to resource poor farmers in Northern Ghana.
Mr Makinde said though AGRA had expanded farmers’ access to affordable credit, less than 10 per cent of lending in Ghana was directed towards agriculture with interest rates ranging between 30 to 40 per cent.
He said in 2009 AGRA, in collaboration with the Millennium Development Authority and Standard Bank, launched a three-year programme to provide $25 million in affordable loans to smallholders,
agro-dealers and small agriculture businesses.
Mr Makinde said AGRA in partnership with the International Fertiliser Development Centre (IFDC) had strengthened about 2,200 agro-dealers and 150 seed producers to increase the availability of agro-inputs such as improved seeds and fertilisers for 850,000 smallholder farmers.
He said AGRA has strengthened agricultural education through training of young scientists with practical knowledge of local crops aimed at improving agriculture in the country.
Mr Makinde announced that AGRA had established and supported the West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement at the University of Ghana,
Legon and Seed Science at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi.
He said in addition, AGRA had worked with IFDC to link farmers to commercial buyers for the purchase of their produce since 30 per cent
of farmers produce was wasted due to lack of market.