USAID, World Bank provide $145m for commercial agriculture in Ghana

Ghana has secured $145 million for the development and expansion of commercial agriculture.

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID), is providing a grant component of $45 million, while the World Bank will provide $100 million as a loan for the project.

Already, the bank has disbursed $9.087 million.

The Minister of Food and Agriculture, Mr Clement Kofi Humado, said this at the inauguration of the National Project Steering Committee of the Ghana Commercial Agriculture Project (GCAP) in Accra yesterday.

The committee will provide policy direction to the project implementation unit, discuss detailed work programme and spending allocations with the project implementation unit, approve the annual work plans and budgets and review progress made towards achieving the objectives of the project, among other things.

GCAP aims at improving the investment climate for agri-business and develop Private-Public Partnerships (PPPs) and smallholder linkages towards increasing on-farm productivity and value addition in selected value chains.

Inaugurating the committee, Mr Humado said the objective of the project was to increase access to land, private sector finance, input and output markets for small holder farmers from public, private partnership in commercial agriculture in the Accra Plains and the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority zone.

He said other areas to be tackled under the project were nucleus out-grower or contract arrangements.

Mr Humado explained that the project would benefit both Ghanaian and international investors who would invest in new or expanded opportunities in the appropriate value chains.

A Deputy Minister of Food and Agriculture, Dr Ahmed Yakubu Alhassan, urged members of the committee to improve the investment climate in the sector to attract investments and also market commercial agriculture.

Source: Daily Graphic