AGRA challenges private sector to drive agricultural productivity

The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) wants the private sector to drive the agenda of improving agronomic practices for increased food production.

According to Dr. Marie Rarieya, a programmes officer with the not-for-profit organization, farmers need to access good seeds, fertilizer and credit to lead in economic transformation and prosperity.

She therefore expects seed producers, agro dealers and financial service providers to complement activities of research institutes and government to provide efficient support services in agribusiness.

Dr. Marie believes public-private partnership would yield the needed results for an upscale in agric investment.

“AGRA as an institute is interested in working in working with the Soil Research Institute to see to it that farmers have access to credit. With the finance, it would be possible to purchase the inputs”, she told a farmers' forum in the Ahafo Ano District of Ashanti.

AGRA has over $10million worth of agricultural investments in Ghana, focusing on the agric value-chain.

This year alone, AGRA has given out $700,000 to the private sector to promote maize and soyabean intercropping in Tamale.

Dr. Marie says farmers need to be supported to access information to improve agronomic practices.

“Extension is one good way of getting message to the farmers and we need to have the right knowledge, the right information to deliver to the farmers… the agricultural research institutes are well positioned to generate the knowledge, the innovation and the technologies that we really need to advance the transformation on the continent”, she stated.

Story by Kofi Adu Domfeh/Luv Fm/Ghana