Through the Regional Hub, the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) developed a training manual to facilitate the development of resilient and sustainable (green) food value chains. Over May and June, they hosted remote regional training events to troubleshoot the manual and kickstart the greening process.
About “greening” agrifood value chains
“Greening” refers to the transformation of a process or practice towards a more holistically sustainable and resilient outcome. Green food value chains proactively promote the sustainable use of natural resources to mitigate adverse impacts on the landscape and generate positive results for nature and communities. A resilient and sustainable food value chain considers proper disposal and recycling and has a plan for recapturing value at every stage to reduce environmental, socio-cultural and economic impact overall.
“Greening” intends to provide a holistic, circular, open-ended framework that creates sustainable economic, environmental, and social outcomes for all stakeholders involved. Greening a food value chain leads to increased economic opportunities, innovation in processes and operations, upgraded technology and myriad social benefits, especially for smallholder farmers.
Past training events and outcomes
RFS Regional Hub partners AGRA and UNDP have supported country projects in developing resilient and sustainable value chains since the programme’s start. In September 2019, AGRA and UNDP hosted a regional training workshop focused on greening agricultural value chains for RFS country project teams in Nairobi. The event’s purpose was to teach country project teams to apply value chain concepts to farming operations, raise technical awareness on how to make food value chains more sustainable and resilient, and, importantly, identify further training needs.
Thirty people attended, representing Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Niger, Nigeria, Malawi, Senegal, Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania. The trainees attended seminars on integrating climate-smart agriculture into value chains, building community resilience and adapting to climate change. At the end of the training, each country project developed specific action plans for greening their food value chains.
With the knowledge gained from the initial training session, UNDP and AGRA developed a training manual to help guide RFS country teams as they work to green food value chains. The guide aims to build value chain actors’ capacities and analytical skills, focusing specifically on smallholder producers and service providers.
The manual blends best practices and lessons learned from projects, programmes and initiatives that promote resilient and sustainable food value chain development in Africa. It will help country teams implement a holistic approach to agricultural productivity and agribusiness development in their smallholder farming systems.
The training sessions
In May and June, AGRA and UNDP hosted a second round of targeted training to promote and encourage the use of the manual. The training built country team capacity to develop multi-stakeholder platforms (MSPs), identify priority value chains, map value chains, and develop action plans. AGRA-UNDP planning and assistance will cover all aspects of value chain development, from mapping the value chain to financing its “greening”.
To ensure training is tailored to each geographical context, AGRA-UNDP held region specific sessions:
East Africa: 6 May 2021
West Africa: 19 May 2021
Southern Africa: 10 June 2021
If you missed the AGRA-UNDP training or are interested in attending future training sessions, please contact Assan Ngombe for more information.
“What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.”
It is with shock and sadness that I received the news of the demise of AGRA Director, and my friend Linah Mohohlo, which occurred on Wednesday, June 2, 2021.
Linah brought the power of her leadership and compassion to one of the most important humanitarian issues of our time, the role of financial inclusion in the development of Africa.
Her brilliance, passion and commitment to the improvement of women’s livelihoods in Africa was encapsulated in her unwavering service on the AGRA Board of Directors from the year 2012 to the time of her passing. In joining the AGRA Board, she answered the late Founding Chair Kofi Annan’s call for a new vision for agricultural development in Africa.
Linah’s death is mourned by an entire continent and we at AGRA share the grief of the government and people of Botswana on the loss of a national and global treasure. We will miss her immeasurable contribution and the love that she so effectively expressed through thought leadership and action.
Linah’s greatest commitment and love was for her family. Our thoughts and prayers go out to them.
Linah touched so many lives with her work and today we celebrate her life. Rest in Peace dear Sister.
Hailemariam Dessalegn
Former Prime Minister of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia/ Chair of the AGRA Board of Directors
Limited access to information about businesses, opportunities, networks, and market access are some of the reasons why women are not thriving, especially in developing countries.
Women are actors in numerous agricultural value chains, offering huge potential for their participation in markets, but very few are involved at the end of the chain.
Promoting women’s agribusinesses is, therefore, a viable route to improving livelihoods and prosperity for rural communities. However, women often lack access to competitive markets, and technical, leadership and management capacities.
Women also experience other gender-related barriers, including access to finance, to help grow their businesses and enable them to compete more effectively in the market.
Various interventions to increase business opportunities for women have often failed to conduct robust market analyses, resulting in market saturation and weaker than expected returns.
According to Ms Sabdiyo Dido, the head of gender and inclusiveness at Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), there is need to build a one-stop-shop for women entrepreneurs across the African continent to create a movement and amplify the voice of women in agriculture and agribusiness to address constraints they face in terms of environmental perspective, gender, policy, and legislative perspectives.
To enhance interaction and networking among African women in agribusiness and potential investors and trade partners, a platform dubbed VALUE4HER was launched in 2018 by CTA, a joint international institution of the African, Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP) Group of States and the European Union (EU).
The networking platform is being implemented by the African Women Agribusiness Network Afrika (AWAN-Afrika) and the Africa Women Entrepreneurship and Innovation Forum (AWIEF). The initiative provides women traders with skills, knowledge, capacities, and linkages to markets to assist them to scale their businesses.
“We are looking at making it possible for women to access more profitable stages of their agricultural value chain. We have so many women operating in agriculture across Africa but they are still at the lower stages of the value chain where you have less profit and benefits,” Ms Dido says.
Mr John Jagwe, the country manager, AGRA, says the platform enables women to interact and network on issues of agribusiness. The platform exposes not only the top-end women but also the grassroots women to opportunities in agribusiness.
“Traditionally, many women are largely retailers but this platform maps women agripreneurs in Africa, and links them to potential investors and buyers,” he says.
He adds, “After interacting with the successful women on the platform and getting skills, women can be able to export agriculture commodities, add value to their products and become high-end processors of agriculture commodities.”
Mr Jagwe says agriculture markets get more complicated as they move further along the value chain. He describes Value4Her as a platform that was initiated to bring women’s businesses to the path of profitability. The platform, he, says, had demonstrated its potential as a go-to platform for women entrepreneurs in Africa to connect with one another and gain access to investments, market information, and intelligence.
“We train women to develop the skills and knowledge to access finance, to know who the financiers are and what are the terms to access finance,” he says, adding that women-led businesses need exposure to global markets, supply chains and investors.
Ms Eva Ndamono Shitaatala, the chief executive officer, Zadeva Fisheries, and a member of the Value4Her platform is one such beneficiary. She describes her experience going digital after losing 80 per cent of her revenue due to the lockdown brought about by the COVID 19 pandemic.
According to the CTA website, through the training that Ms Shitaatala received on the platform, she launched an online marketing campaign that saw her business regain its footing and increase its profit by 20 per cent per month. She spoke of the networks, synergy and accessibility brought about by Value4Her and noted that it felt good to brainstorm and have others listen to you and share solutions.
Ms Victoria Sekitoleko, the board chair of Uganda Agribusiness Alliance, says this platform is important in creating equity and strengthening women’s business networks through facilitated learning and links to buyers.
She gives an example of a grocer, who she normally contacted via a mobile telephone during the lockdown to place her orders and have them delivered. She says if the grocer didn’t embrace technology, her business would have collapsed during the lockdown.
“This is a technology age. Women in agribusiness should be part of this platform to thrive in the digital era. Many women are afraid of technology but I encourage them, especially those in agribusiness to embrace technology,” she says.
Most women who start businesses as sole proprietors in Africa, according to Ms Sekitoleko, do not thrive due to lack of networks, finance, markets, and skills that can enable them to manage their businesses.
“I encourage all women involved in agribusiness to join this platform such that they are linked to markets, finance as well as learning from other successful and well-informed women entrepreneurs,” she says.
Dr Birungi Korutaro, the chief executive officer of Kilimo Trust, says there are many opportunities in agribusiness such as aggregation, input provision, transportation but all can be fully exploited if women can form associations and networks.
She says women should not be thinking of working alone but should work collectively through business associations. The market opportunities for agriculture products, according to Dr Korutaro are huge globally and one woman alone cannot seize them.
“You must be part of a business association or network to benefit from the global opportunities. Belonging to a group enables one to have easy access to markets, capital, training, and land,” she adds.
“Banks find it easier to provide financial assistance to an association which is well established. Most of the women are operating in the informal sector, it is very difficult to track them compared to an association that is registered,”
Ms Stella Marie Biwaga, the programme director of the National Association of Women Organisations, says associations and networks provide a platform through which women can share challenges, solutions and opportunities.
She says most women are still stuck with the old model of agribusiness because they don’t have the tools, can’t afford machinery, finances, and land but through associations, women can progress well.
“Women need to appreciate that they need to register their businesses. People are not going for informal trade anymore, you have to be organised,” Ms Biwaga says.
Growing business
Women network
VALUE4Her is AGRA’s continental programme aimed at assisting women grow their agribusinesses through access to markets, capital, skills and capacities, and business information and intelligence services. The network prepares women-led businesses to become visible through digital networking, and through this financiers come in.
KAMPALA – Access to markets is one of the motivating factors for one to go into farming.
Although for some crops market demand is high, conditions like insecurity usually hinder market access.
This demotivates farmers to invest in farming projects. Such is a scenario being faced by rice farmers in Uganda’s northern and West Nile regions, who have been relying on DR Congo and South Sudan markets for their produce.
According to the manager of Kehong Peyero Millers Ltd, Anthony Okello based in Gulu, they used to sell rice to traders in DR Congo, two years ago but haven’t been able to do so in recent times due to insecurity.
Henry Mawanda (L) from Kilimotrust and Dr John Jagwe from AGRA look at some of the rice being harvested on the farm.
Some of the rice varieties that they have been selling include upland rice varieties, of the Namche series that were developed by NARO with support from the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA).
The varieties were distributed by Kilimotrust through the Competitive African Rice Initiative in East Africa (CARI-EA) project, aimed at increasing the competitiveness of locally produced rice to reduce rice imports into the EAC region.
To ensure that farmers access the rice quickly, Kilimotrust is working with Seed Companies like Equator Seeds Ltd to supply the seed to farmers and to millers like Peyero Millers Ltd to provide a ready market for the paddy produced by the over 10,000 farmers working with this miller.
“However, due to the increasing insecurity in DR Congo, coupled with the influx of Tanzanian rice on the Ugandan market, there has been a drop in prices of paddy rice offered to farmers from sh1,000 per kilogram to as low as sh800,” added Okello from Payero millers.
He added that in the past, traders from DR Congo used to drive into Uganda, buy rice and then drive back, some would send the money and only wait for the rice to be delivered, however, these have since disappeared because of the insecurity along the route used by traders on the DR. Congo side.” added Okello.
Okello’s concerns were further backed up by Franco Alia, the partnership manager at Equator Seeds Limited who testified that DR Congo remains a volatile region and has no clear trade systems, later on, compensation mechanisms.
AGRA Kilimo team in Northern Uganda checking on rice farmers to find out if their interventions are helping farmers increase productivity.
“Most times businessmen travel to Arua to meet the traders and sometimes these transact business on phone and then drive the produce themselves to DR Congo,” said Alia.
The two made the revelations while meeting a team from AGRA and Kilimo Trust, who were on a working visit to rice farmers across the country, to find out progress made since CARI-EA project was launched.
The three-year project (2019 – 2022) is implemented through a business partnership approach through which rice millers/ processors are the anchor partners, crowding in smallholder farmers and providers of the necessary business development services including finance, extension, quality agro-inputs, labour saving and paddy quality enhancing technologies.
Henry Mawanda, a program officer at Kilimo Trust, said despite the above concerns, some buyers could have dropped off due low competitiveness of the locally produced rice in terms of quality and prices.
“As evidenced by the impact of the influx of Tanzanian rice on the Ugandan rice sub-sector, there is still a need to enhance the competitiveness of Ugandan rice by increasing farmers’ capacity in business skills, technologies such as quality inputs, mechanization services, technologies that minimize postharvest losses among others,” said Mawanda.
The impact, experiences and lessons from AGRA programmes in Nigeria featured prominently during key discussions at a recent webinar for private and public partners under the umbrella of the Partnership for Inclusive Agricultural Transformation (PIATA).
Various panellists made presentations on the progress of implementation of the five year AGRA Nigeria Strategy to catalyse agricultural transformation and improve the productivity and incomes of about 1.5 million smallholder farmers in Kaduna and Niger States. AGRA and partners collaborated with the federal and state governments with a particular focus on rice, maize, cassava and soybean value chains.
The webinar, titled Catalysing and sustaining inclusive agricultural transformation: experiences and lessons from the field, was held on 27 April 2021 and hosted by Dr. Kehinde Makinde, AGRA Nigeria Country Manager. It was moderated by Dr. Charles Iyangbe, Senior Agricultural Economist, USAID Nigeria.
During a presentation on PIATA’s impact on the seed and input distribution sector in Kaduna and Niger States, Dr. Folarin Okelola of the Nigeria Agricultural Seed Council noted improvements such as the wider availability of breeder and foundation seed as a result of the support for seed companies. Whereas only research institutions had previously been involved in production, two private companies are currently involved in the production of early generation seeds for maize, soybean and rice while over 30 seed companies now commercialise seeds, compared to six, before the PIATA engagement.
“AGRA’s support has strengthened the capacity of the Seed Council and enabled agencies to enforce the seed and fertiliser surveillance regulations, and there is better compliance with regional and international standards,” said Dr. Okelola.
Expounding on extension and consortia development, Prof. Sani Miko, the Country Director of Sasakawa Africa Association/SG2000 Nigeria, gave an inventory of the improvements observed in farmers’ yields, new skills and coverage of extension workers, storage infrastructure as well as a critical mass of community-based agents augmenting the public sector extension service.
The PIATA intervention has seen an improvement of the ratio of extension workers in Kaduna and Niger States respectively, with the ratio improving 1:4000 to 1:300 in Kaduna State, and from 1:5600 to 1:500 in Niger State.
“The introduction of the private sector-led extension approach led to regular, better quality training for extension personnel; so, we have seen better agronomic practices and other value-chain activities,” said Prof. Miko. He added that there has been a 30 percent increase among maize farmers and 80 percent increase among rice farmers adopting new seed varieties.
The information and awareness efforts have been strengthened by training about 4000 Community Based Agents (CBA), who in turn cascaded the training to over 800,000 thousand farmers.
Hope Fidelis, a Diploma holder in Library and Information Science, is one such CBA, who joined the programme in 2019 in Kaduna. At the time of joining, his yield maize was only 18 bags per hectare this improved to 45 bags per hectare upon the adoption of improved hybrid seeds. He told webinar participants that he had trained over 300 farmers and was one of the 86 CBAs that had graduated to become agro dealers.
Prof. Miko noted that an analysis of 300 farmers across the States revealed that the best farmers increased their maize yields from 2,353kg per hectare to an average of 5,097kg per hectare.
On inclusive financing, Mr. Ayodeji Balogun, CEO AFex Commodities Exchange noted an increased engagement with farmers since joining the consortia approach implemented by AGRA. From working with about 40,000 farmers in 2020, AFEX targets 80,000 farmers in the soybean and rice value chains in 2021.
AFEX has grown its focus on women farmers, with the number of women that have taken loans from AFEX rising from 16 in 2015, to over 700 currently.
“Our impact reports indicate that for farmers we have worked with for two to three years, about 16 percent have a probability of being within the poverty bracket compared with the baseline of about 45 percent of,” said Mr. Balogun.
Giving her experiences on Partnerships, the Managing Director of Psaltry International, Ms. Yemisi Iranloye said that collaboration with Nestlé and AGRA had built the capacity of about 400 youth aged between 18 and 35 years in agronomic practices, business management, and record-keeping, skills that have enabled them become budding entrepreneurs in the cassava value chain.
“Our experience is that these young people adapt faster to change, such as the use of improved inputs and mechanisation, unlike their parents, enabling them attain up to 23 tonnes per hectare compared to their parents, who managed about 18 tonnes per hectare at most,” said Ms. Iranloye.
The Commissioner for Agriculture in Kaduna State, Hajia Halima Lawal noted that AGRA’s support towards State Capability had improved capacity in Kaduna State for the development of policy frameworks, data collection, coordination with other government departments as well as monitoring and evaluation.
AGRA’s strategy and business plan for Nigeria seeks to catalyse and sustain an inclusive agricultural transformation by contributing to the government’s need for a strong agriculture sector with effective coordination and implementation capabilities. By focusing on Policy and State Capability, Systems Development and Partnerships, PIATA expects direct improvements in food security for at least 1.5 million farmers and indirectly for 2 million smallholder households.
MAKUENI, Kenya, May 11 2021 (IPS) – It is an uncommon occurrence to see farms with flourishing healthy crops in Kenya’s semi-arid Makueni County. But in Kithiani village, Justus Kimeu’s two-acre piece of land stands out from the rest. After embracing the regenerative agriculture (RA) technique, the 52-year-old farmer is looking forward to a bumper harvest of maize as all his neighbours count their losses following this year’s failed season.
“I have been a farmer for many years, but I have never seen such a healthy crop during such a dry season,” Kimeu told IPS. “All the road users who pass by this farm can hardly go away without stopping to have a second look at a crop that has defied the prevailing tough climatic conditions.”
Kimeu is one of 900 farmers in Kenya’s two dryland counties of Embu and Makueni who are participating in a pilot project to see how RA can be used to improve food productivity.
The technique, which is being piloted by AGRA under a grant funded by The IKEA Foundation, is a dynamic and holistic way of farming that involves all the principals of permaculture and organic farming, such as minimum tillage, use of cover crops, crop rotation, terracing to reduce soil erosion, heavy mulching to keep the soils moist, use of basins to preserve soil moisture and the use of composted manure to give the topsoil the texture of a virgin fertile arable land.
“The main theory of this technique is actually to return the topsoil back to its original state,” Michael Mutua, an associate program officer in charge of RA at AGRA, told IPS. “Instead of feeding the crop, we concentrate on feeding the soil,” he said.
According the Food Sustainability Index created by Barilla Centre for Food and Nutrition (BCFN) and the Economist Intelligence Unit, increased adoption of regenerative farm practices reduces carbon emissions during cultivation and sequesters carbon into the soil.
In a proposal of 10 interdisciplinary actions to finding ways to nourish both people and the planet post-COVID-19, one of the suggestions by BCFN was that the world develop internationally agreed-upon standards for RA practices and agroecology, as well as common definitions for healthy and sustainable food systems and food.
BCFN experts further acknowledged that regenerative and agroecological agricultural practices have the potential to boost soil health, preserve water resources and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
To popularise the new farming technique in Kenya, AGRA collaborated with the two county governments of Makueni and Embu, and with the Cereal Growers Association (CGA) to identify lead farmers.
The farmers were then trained on RA practices and were supported to create plots known as ‘mother demos’.
“A mother demo is actually a place for farmers’ practical lessons,” said Mutua. “It consists of four plots, where one plot is done using all the recommended RA practices, the second one using farming methods commonly used in the area, the third one is by using part of the regenerative agriculture principles, and the fourth one is the control plot, where the same crop is planted without any agronomic practice,” he explained.
Each farmer then recruited up to 100 smallholder farmers from the neighbourhood to teach them from the mother demo. Once the farmers felt confident, they returned to their own farms to set up a baby demo, which is a single plot using all the principles of AR.
“Nearly all our farmers are at the baby demo stage,” said Mutua. “But a few bold ones like Kimeu went straight to implementation without doing a small demo for the learning purpose,” he said.
According to Kimeu, the lessons at the mother demo stage were sufficient, “and doing a baby demo for him, would amount to a wasted season,” he told IPS.
“When I decided to implement this technique, my farm was bare without much vegetation. So I started by making terraces and after it rained, different weeds sprouted. Together with my household members we manually uprooted all the weeds and left them on the farm to dry and decompose before making small basins in which we were going to plant the crop,” explained the farmer.
The basins were then filled with organic manure and some topsoil. And when it rained for the second time, hybrid drought tolerant maize variety seeds were planted inside the moist basins and any weed that sprouted was manually uprooted and left to dry and rot on the farm.
“We try as much as possible to avoid tillage or any form of disturbing the soil for it to regenerate naturally to its original form,” Kimeu said, noting that he also avoided use of conventional fertilisers.
Almost 900 farmers from the two counties are expected to graduate from the baby demo stage and implement RA during the 2021/2022 season. “If well implemented, it will more than double food security among the participating households,” said Mutua.
Bob Kisyula, the Makueni County Minister of Agriculture Livestock and Fisheries, told IPS: “If our smallholder farmers could embrace these techniques and produce such healthy crops, then we will never need alms and food aid even in the toughest seasons.”
Kisyula said that the County Government also invested in rippers, which are used to ensure that there is minimum disturbance of the soil as part of the RA approach.
Today, Kimeu has become a role model and a village hero.
“In this short period, I have been approached by hundreds of farmers from my village and other places who are seeking to understand how the technique works,” he said.
The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), is the only development partner that understood and believed in the vision of the Government of Ghana’s flagship agricultural transformation programme, Planting for Food and Jobs, at the outset, and has supported it since, according to the Minister for Food and Agriculture, Dr. Owusu Afriyie-Akoto.
Not only did AGRA understand the vision to transform Ghana’s agriculture, it practicalised its support in many ways – providing technical support, supplying critically needed capital, making available priceless expertise and helping break the programmes into practical modules to ensure a successful outlay.
Dr. Owusu Afriyie-Akoto paid the glowing tribute to the farmer-centered, African-led, and partnerships-driven institution while contributing to a webinar on AGRA’s contributions to the Agricultural Transformation Journey in Ghana.
Delivering the keynote address, the Agric Minister particularly singled out Dr. Agnes Kalibata, President of AGRA, and Mr. Forster Boateng, AGRA’s West Africa Regional Head, for their immense support for the government of Ghana’s programme.
“In 2017 when I had just been appointed minister for Food and Agriculture, one of the first visitors I received was no less a figure than Dr. Agnes Kalibata. She paid a courtesy call on me and engaged me and other stakeholders to secure their buy-in into government’s vision of modernizing the agriculture sector in Ghana. We solicited for both financial and technical assistance of our development partners to rollout the government’s flagship campaign of Planting for Food and Jobs. It is sad to say, our planting for Food and Jobs campaign initially did not resonate well with most of our development partners. I dare say they were doubting Thomases… For us, AGRA was the only partner who understood our vision, what it takes and how to actualize the vision.”
The Planting for Food and Jobs, running in five strategic modules, is geared towards enhancing food security, job creation, improved incomes for farmers and the general improvement of the economy.
The five PFJ modules
Food Security: increase productivity of small holder farmers in selected food crops and vegetables.
Planting for Export and Rural Development (PERD): focuses on expanding tree crops development.
Rearing for Food and Jobs (RFJ): enhances the livestock sector.
Greenhouse vegetable production: focuses at ensuring there is sufficient vegetables for both local and international markets.
Agricultural Mechanisation Service Centres (AMSECs): aims at mechanising small holder agriculture.
AGRA Support
According to the Minister, in preparing the plan for PFJ which was during a period he described as the investment community had great doubts, AGRA came along to provide technical assistance to the ministry to develop a five-year strategic plan for PFJ, which consists of four investment packets, namely; improved seeds, application of fertilizer, extension services to small holders and markets and e-agriculture.
He said during the plan preparation process, AGRA consulted with relevant stakeholders including development partners, CSOs, private sector, “and in this respect I must mention the contribution that Mr. Forster Boateng made in this effort in trying to link us up with these stakeholders”. He said the plan was later validated by the Agriculture Sector Working Group after which partners like USAID committed to it.
“In the implementation AGRA through its country strategic plan for Ghana aligned its programmed resources to invest in seed, fertilizer and the marketplace behind PFJ,” as well as in policy and regulation formulation.
The Agric Minister said several other interventions provided by AGRA have contributed immensely to improved farm methods and yields, such as the use of certified seeds increasing from 11 per cent in 2016 to 40 per cent in 2020 among PFJ beneficiaries.
There is also increased yield per acreage in rice and maize production, from 2.8 metric tonnes per hectare in 2016 to 4 metric tonnes per hectare in 2020 for rice, and for maize, 1.8 metric tonnes per hectare in 2016 to 3.5 metric tonnes in 2020.
“We are hoping that we increase this to 5/6 metric tonnes per hectare in the next couple of years. Production volume increased from 1.9 million metric tonnes in 2017 to 4 million metric tonnes in 2020 for cereal, making Ghana now self-sufficient in maize production.”
Going forward, Dr. Owusu Afriyie-Akoto said government will continue to partner AGRA in many more critical engagements, including tree crops development (cashew, mango, shea, coconut, oil palm, rubber and coffee) with the potential to generate for Ghana foreign exchange in the region of $16 billion per year from the next 7/8 years onwards.
“Madam President, thank you for releasing Mr. Forster (Boateng), the AGRA West Africa Regional Head to us to support the Tree Crop Development Authority.”
Ghana will also collaborate with AGRA on the poultry value chain, digital technology for agriculture development, and in resilience and climate change initiatives, he said.
There is also increased yield per acreage in rice and maize production, from 2.8 metric tonnes per hectare in 2016 to 4 metric tonnes per hectare in 2020 for rice, and for maize, 1.8 metric tonnes per hectare in 2016 to 3.5 metric tonnes in 2020.
“We are hoping that we increase this to 5/6 metric tonnes per hectare in the next couple of years. Production volume increased from 1.9 million metric tonnes in 2017 to 4 million metric tonnes in 2020 for cereal, making Ghana now self-sufficient in maize production.”
Going forward, Dr. Owusu Afriyie-Akoto said government will continue to partner AGRA in many more critical engagements, including tree crops development (cashew, mango, shea, coconut, oil palm, rubber and coffee) with the potential to generate for Ghana foreign exchange in the region of $60 million per year from the next 7/8 years onwards.
“Madam President, thank you for releasing Mr. Forster (Boateng), the AGRA West Africa Regional Head to us to support the Tree Crop Development Authority.”
Ghana will also collaborate with AGRA on the poultry value chain, digital technology for agriculture development, and in resilience and climate change initiatives, he said.
Dr. Agnes Kalibata
The President of AGRA who also congratulated the Agric Minister for his leadership, said if there are good results in the journey so far, all it meant is that the partners are doing something right and expressed the commitment to continue to do even more. “I also want to appreciate the partners who have been working with you, and sometimes with us also in some cases. This is not a single man’s journey, this is a journey that transforms 60 per cent of the country in terms of population, it is not something anybody can do alone.”
She said AGRA’s aim, as with other development partners, is that when it moves elsewhere, the systems will keep running hence its focus on working with institutions while providing the necessary support.
She said while results from AGRA’s partnership with institutions differ from one country to another, the results in Ghana have been amazing, partly because the work AGRA is doing is connected with government’s own aspirations.
“We didn’t try to do things that are separate from what the government is doing, we’ve tried to reinforce the government’s own work”, she said, and encouraged governments to formulate policies that work to benefit the larger masses, explaining also that Ghana has been a defining factor for AGRA’s work and from which mutual counsel must come.
While Dr. Agnes Kalibata stressed the urgent need for Africa to end hunger by taking pragmatic steps, she also pointed out that many are those who have tried to undermine AGRA’s work.
“A number of things have happened since we started this journey; we now have the food systems summit that is in place that we must take advantage of; people recognize that we are behind in a number of things, on hunger, on poverty, but also climate change is an issue since we started this work, and recognizing that complexity is going to be very important to how we drive for hunger and reducing poverty and I just want to encourage you to take advantage of every opportunity the food system summit offers… A lot of people have been trying to undermine the work that we do … but I keep telling people that they are not undermining AGRA, they are undermining our partners because AGRA doesn’t implement ….hold us accountable where you see that we are not doing things right, please hold us accountable but also, let’s say no to anybody trying to define who we are…. Who we are is we are trying very hard to deliver for our people, who we are is we are doing a good job through the partnership we have with you and I just don’t think we should allow other people to define that for us.”
Mr. Forster Boateng
The AGRA West Africa Regional Head said AGRA has been in Ghana since 2007 investing close to $60 million up to 2016, focusing on research capacity building, where it supported a number of African research and breeders to breed high yielding varieties to support farmers.
These activities, along with many others yielded great results, however, he said it was fraught with many challenges as it was piecemeal and lacked integration.
“So taking a step back we realized that we need an integrated approach in driving inclusive agricultural transformation. What actually informed us was: Most of the farmers in Ghana were smallholder farmers and their productivity was low. We also realize that they were inefficient and uncompetitive. There were a lot of challenges confronting the agricultural sector in Ghana. We saw dysfunctional production and delivery systems, we also saw climate change effects on agriculture and so we needed to revise our notes and make new investments, we saw very limited access of value chain access to finance and there were sub-optimal policies that were preventing the private sector to participate fully in the sector.”
He said it was at this critical point of re-strategizing to reinvest that the Government of Ghana came out with its vision to improve productivity of smallholder farmers, cast in the frame of Planting for Food and Jobs.
“This Planting for Food and Jobs campaign was anchored in a national agricultural investment plan and when AGRA saw that, it resonated well with us and we said we needed to align our resources to support the government”, he said.
He said the strategy was to touch 600,000 smallholder farmers directly within a period of five years and indirectly, a double of the number, and enumerated a number of successes brought about by the collaboration. He said the results are available for evaluation, and thanked all the partners.
During the webinar, a number of young farmers who are beneficiaries of AGRA’s support programmes shared testimonies of the improvements that have come to their vocations.
Uzima Poultry, and agri-SME, receives a US$3 million follow-on investment to increase food security and improve livelihoods for smallholder farmers East Africa
KIGALI, RWANDA & KAMPALA, UGANDA
May 5, 2021
Uzima Chicken, a leading distributor of high-quality, dual-purpose day-old chicks in East Africa, has received a follow-on investment of US$ 3 Million from AgDevCo.
The investment will contribute to transformation of the poultry industry in Rwanda and Uganda, providing smallholder farmers with high-quality, highly productive birds that can thrive in the local context. Through the Uzima breed, smallholder farmers and their families will have the opportunity to diversify their incomes and build resilience, while consuming more affordable nutritious animal protein.
Dr. Fadel Ndiame, AGRA’s Deputy President said, “The investment into Uzima Chicken will help the company work towards its mission to make smallholder farmers healthier and wealthier and achieve its vision to ensure each household in Rwanda have at least one chicken per year.”
The investment was supported by the Agribusiness Deal Room of the African Green Revolution Forum (AGRF). The AGRF is Africa’s premier agriculture conference, with its Deal Room being a leading platform for matchmaking high potential African agri-SMEs to investors. Incubated by the AGRF partners and the Government of Rwanda,the Deal Room’s Investment Facilitation Program contributed to thesuccessful transaction by paying for a comprehensive market and competitor analysis study, led by the CrossBoundary Group, an advisory services firm.
Hon. Claire Akamanzi, the CEO at Rwanda Development Board and Rwanda Cabinet member, re-emphasised the commitment of the Rwandan Government to facilitatingprivate-sector growth. “ We want to work with the private sector to identify and link them to opportunities where they will thrive. We are pleased that Uzima has responded to our conducive business environment, to which we welcome their continued growth.” She said.
The investment facilitation work is a critical component of the year-round engagement of the AGRF Deal Room. It serves to address the challenges business and investors face in raising and deploying capital while serving as a feedback loop for various supporting initiatives. Since its establishment in 2018, the Deal Room has brought the spotlight on Africa’s growing poultry and animal feed sector. The Deal Room also serves to advance and accelerate transactions towards successful deal signing and closure. The Agribusiness Deal Room of the AGRF and subsequent Investment Facilitation work will continue to provide catalytic support to the agriculture sector, unlocking capital for an underserved sector.
Joseph Shields, co-founder of Uzima Chicken, said that AgDevCo’s investment has enabled them to fully focus on the implementation of their business plan. “AgDevCo’s backing has enabled us to focus on the growth of Uzima. Currently, we have distributed close to five million birds.”
As part of their approach and business strategy, AgDevCo is seeking to invest more into African businesses to promote growth, sustainability, and impact. Chris Isaac, Chief Investment Officer at AgDevCo, expressed his delight at Uzima’s growth so far. “Since we first invested in 2017, Uzima’s progress showcases the potential that SMEs have to drive transformation of the agriculture sector if they have access to patient capital. We look forward to working with more businesses to drive further growth and impact in the region.” This follow-on investment means that AgDevCo has now invested a total of US$6M into Uzima Chicken.
Matchmaking and transaction facilitation in the Agribusiness Deal Room is implemented by CrossBoundary Group.
About the AGRF
The AGRF is the world’s premier forum for African agriculture, bringing together stakeholders in the agricultural landscape to take practical actions and share lessons that will move African agriculture forward. The AGRF Secretariat is hosted by AGRA on behalf of partners; itself an African-led institution that works in 11 countries across the continent. The Government of Rwanda serves as a long-term host of the forum, championing its agenda throughout the year and hosting the annual Summit in all even years.
About Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA)
AGRA is an alliance led by Africans with roots in farming communities across the continent. We understand that African farmers need uniquely African solutions designed to meet their specific environmental and agricultural needs so they can sustainably boost production and gain access to rapidly growing agriculture markets. We are catalyzing an inclusive agricultural transformation in Africa by increasing incomes and improving food security for 30million farming households in 11 focus countries by 2021. Since 2006, we have worked with our partners across Africa to deliver a set of proven solutions to smallholder farmers and thousands of indigenous African agriculture enterprises. The alliance has built the systems and tools for Africa’s agriculture; high-quality seeds, better soil health, access to markets and credit, and coupled by stronger farmer organizations and agriculture policies.
About Uzima Chicken
Uzima is the leading distributor of high-quality, dual purpose day-old chicks in East Africa. Uzima plans to transform the poultry industry in Rwanda and Uganda, providing smallholder farmers with a robust, disease-resistant bird that can thrive in local, rural conditions and is more productive than local birds. Through our breed, smallholder farmers and their families can diversify their income, build income resilience, consume more animal protein, and battle malnutrition.
About AgDevCo
AgDevCo is a specialist investor in African agriculture. We invest to grow sustainable and impactful agribusiness. Our vision is a thriving commercial agriculture sector which benefits both people and planet. We contribute to this by investing in and supporting agribusinesses to grow, create jobs, produce and process food and link farmers to markets. We reinvest our capital to reach higher impact which ensures efficiency and change at scale. We support our partners to work towards climate sustainability, and where possible, regenerative solutions. AgDevCo’s current portfolio has $138m of committed funds into 48 companies.
About CrossBoundary Group
CrossBoundary Group’s mission is to unlock capital to make a strong return and a lasting difference in underserved markets globally. The firm has over 100 professional staff, and offices in Accra, Bamako, Bangkok, Beirut, Bogota, Chișinău, Dakar, Dubai, Ebene, Erbil, Johannesburg, Kabul, Lagos, London, Nairobi, Tunis, New York City and Washington D.C. CrossBoundary Advisory was founded in 2011 and provides a broad spectrum of investment and transaction advisory services across a range of sectors in underserved markets globally.
Contact for
media enquiries
Catherine Ndungu, Senior Communications and Advocacy officer, AGRF at cndungu@agra.org
NAIROBI, May 4, 2021 – AGRA has today announced a partnership with Aceli Africa to enhance capital flows to SMEs in the agriculture sector and support a financially inclusive agricultural transformation across Africa. AGRA and Aceli have signed a letter of intent committing to jointly work together to test and scale up innovations that substantially drive down the cost and risk of financing SMEs in the agriculture space.
Aceli Africa is a market incentive facility that offers financial incentives to mitigate risk and compensate lenders for the transaction costs of serving high-impact agricultural SMEs. Aceli plans to support its 25 lending partners in mobilizing $700 million in financing for agri-SMEs by 2025 with a focus on SMEs that are gender inclusive, improve food security, and practice climate-smart agriculture.
“AGRA firmly believes that it is vital to unlock the potential of SMEs for agricultural transformation across Africa. This partnership with Aceli is a step in this direction, as the increased capital flows & technical assistance will enable the SMEs to unleash their potential and offer better services to smallholder farmers. This partnership will also work on implementing digital solutions to make financial record keeping and reporting more efficient and reliable which will improve the bankability of the SMEs.” Vanessa Adams, Vice president Strategic Partnerships with AGRA.
Aceli Africa CEO Brian Milder: “Aceli Africa shares AGRA’s vision for an inclusive and sustainable agricultural transformation that creates economic opportunities, builds a resilient regional food system, and stewards the natural environment. Achieving this vision is only possible if we can unlock the growth and impact potential of agricultural SMEs. Building on AGRA’s leading role as a convener and advocate and Aceli’s data-driven approach to mobilizing private sector lending, together we can address the longstanding barriers that limit the flow of capital to agricultural SMEs.”
AGRA and Aceli are like-minded institutions that will partner specifically in promoting innovations that address the barriers to capital flowing to agricultural SMEs at scale. With today’s announcement, AGRA and Aceli Africa also announce the first call for an Innovation Challenge for sustainable, scalable, and innovative business development solutions to improve the quality of financial statements among agricultural SMEs. https://agra.org/call-for-concept-notes-agra-aceli-africa innovation-challenge/
“As AGRA we want agricultural SMEs to grow and for that growth access to finance is key. Our partnership with Aceli Africa seeks to address the root cause of the lesser return on Agri SME finance by investing in innovations that reduce the cost and risk of financing smaller SMEs“ said Hedwig Siewertsen, Head Innovative Finance
Aceli’s Head of Partnerships Christabell Makokha: “Aceli is thrilled to partner with AGRA in promoting innovations that will lower transaction costs for lenders to serve agricultural SMEs. Agri-SMEs play a critical role in ensuring more inclusive and sustainable food systems, yet they remain significantly underserved. The AGRA-Aceli Innovation Challenge announced today leverages the expertise of both organizations to identify and support creative solutions to bridge the gap between capital supply and demand.”
Through the collaboration, Aceli and its network of private sector lending partners will also contribute to AGRA’s work to connect SMEs to capital providers through the Agribusiness Deal Room to support SMEs (1).
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For more information please contact Rebecca Weaver, Acting Head of Communications, AGRA, rweaver@agra.org
About AGRA
Established in 2006, AGRA is an African-led and Africa-based institution that puts smallholder farmers at the center of the continent’s growing economy by transforming agriculture from a solitary struggle to survive into farming as a business that thrives. Together with our partners, we catalyse and sustain inclusive agriculture transformation to increase the incomes and improve food security for 30 million farming households in 11 African countries by 2021. More info: www.agra.org
About Aceli Africa
Aceli Africa is a market incentive facility that unlocks capital for agricultural small- and medium-enterprises (SMEs) in East Africa. Informed by original data on the economics of agri-SME lending, Aceli Africa is designed to align capital supply and demand to mobilize $700M in lending to agri-SMEs while creating a more sustainable and competitive marketplace. More info: www.aceliafrica.org
About Agribusiness Deal Room
The Agribusiness Deal Room aspires to be the prime platform to drive deal origination and access to finance for a pool of critical agribusiness and SMEs in the coming years. It also creates opportunities for governments to present investment opportunities, promote investment incentives and engage with interested investors. More info: https://agrf.org/dealroom/about-deal-room/
Transforming smallholder farming into lucrative commercial enterprises is at the core of most government policies and efforts by development partners across the continent but such efforts must be built on agricultural practices that build resilience and protect the environment.
One technique that can guarantee this is regenerative agriculture. Frida Muendo has applied this to very good effect on her small farm in Kinyonga village in Makueni County.
Kinyonga was once known for its maize production but is now reeling from the impact of weather fluctuations due to climate change, land degradation, limited access to extension services and weak input and output market linkages.
Last year, Ms Muendo was trained in the application of regenerative and climate smart agricultural technologies such as minimum tillage, cover cropping, intercropping (use of legumes), crop rotation, composting, use of organic mulch, agro-forestry, the use of certified stress/drought tolerant crop varieties and seeds, and soil and water conservation technologies. She was also trained in business-to-business linkages and post-harvest management skills.
She is now a resource on the use of these ecological and climate friendly technologies that have so reduced production costs by a third, improved her farm soil quality and increased her yields. Where she was harvesting three bags of maize before, now she is harvesting an average of six to 10 an acre.
Innovative extension
She set up a cereals store where she offtakes grains from farmers in the surrounding villages. She also sells post-harvest handling equipment such as hermetic bags, hand shellers and tarpaulins.
Ms Muendo is now transferring her skills and knowledge to others. She has so far trained 73 farmers on land preparation, seed spacing and how to apply manure and crop protection. Farmers have also been taught how to mulch, use fertiliser and on minimum tillage to help increase farm productivity, soil health and thus earn more income.
In the past, she only used to plant maize. She did not know about soil and water conservation structures or agroforestry but she now intercrops pigeon peas and maize and cowpeas as well. She also has established a tree nursery in her farm and implements soil and water conservation measures.
Ms Muendo’s story demonstrates the effectiveness of nature-positive approaches that are rooted on the principles of local ownership that is based on bottom-up processes, strengthened by science and an enabling policy environment. More investment is needed for scaling and increased adoption of such nature-positive systems. Further investments in awareness and empowerment is required for complete transformation of food systems.
The experience garnered from Makueni alludes to the need for more robust and innovative extension programs that pay special attention to women and the youth. Having these ingredients will accelerate replication across the country and the continent.
