MCA Pumps $208.8m Into Agric

The Millennium Development Authority (MiDA), under the Millennium Challenge Compact (MCC) Fund, has spent a total of $208.8 million on agricultural projects across the country.

The amount represents about 38.8 per cent of the total compact budget of $547million released to Ghana in February 2007 by the United States government.

The compact programme is aimed at the integrated and simultaneous development of three key activities namely agriculture, transportation and rural development projects.

The objective of the agric project is to enhance the profitability of staple foods and high value horticulture crops.

It is also to improve the delivery of business and technical services to support the expansion of commercial agriculture and Farmer-Based Organisations (FBOs).  

Taking his turn at the Meet-the-Press series in Accra, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of MiDA, Martin Eson-Benjamin said 'to achieve the objectives under the agricultural project, a number of mutually reinforcing and integrated activities, six in all, were identified to address constraints to farming.'

These activities, he noted, include farmer and enterprise training in commercial agriculture in all 30 districts, irrigation, land tenure facilitation, post-harvest infrastructure and value chain services, agricultural credit and feeder roads activities.

Mr. Eson-Benjamin said 'under the farmer and enterprise training in commercial agriculture $62.13 million was spent on free, intensive, multi-phased training for 67,090 smallholder farmers to help them improve their commercial and business planning skills and improve the rate of the adoption of the value-chain approach and crop productivity enhancement process.'

He added that 'to minimize frequent crop failures and food shortages due to variations in the amount and intensity of rain, and to expand fruit and vegetable production by smallholder farmers and other farmer groups, the programme has provided irrigated water to some needy communities and anchor investors totaling $24.8 million.'

The land tenure facilitation activity, he stated, has been designed to contribute to an environment of more secure land tenure and more efficient land use for the benefit of local farmers and investors.

Regarding the post-harvest infrastructure and value chain services, the CEO noted that the 'MCC funding has supported the development of additional post-harvest handling capacity that will assist in maintaining the quality and enhance the value of products from the farm to markets and also reduce post-harvest losses.'

He added that a modern 1000-tonne privately-managed Perishable Cargo Center with storage and cold rooms to handle fresh agriculture produce has been constructed at the Kotoka International Airport.

He indicated that a total of $29.75 million and $70.63 million were used to execute the agricultural credit and feeder roads project respectively.

On road projects, Mr. Eson-Benjamin stated that a total budget of $218.37 million or 40 per cent of the total budget has been spent to help reduce the transportation costs affecting agricultural commerce at the sub-regional and regional levels in Ghana in support of the Agriculture Project.

He noted that under the transportation project, the 30-month Tetteh-Quarshie Interchange to Mallam Junction road was completed with an amount of $173.3 million, representing 31.7 per cent of Compact funds.   

He added that the 'Rural Services Development Project also spent a total of $77.72 million to assist residents of rural areas, who are predominantly farmers with basic community services such as potable water, community sanitation, schools at all levels and domestic electricity.'

Mr. Eson-Benjamin thanked government and Ghanaians for their support and corporation during the execution of the projects.

The 14.1 kilometre Tetteh-Quarshie Mallam project at Apenkwa will be inaugurated on Wednesday, February 15 2012 to mark the end of the MCC projects.

  By Esther Awuah & Cephas Larbi