Background
Agriculture continues to play an essential role in the provision of food security, supply of raw materials for industry, creation of employment, generation of foreign exchange earnings, and contribution to national GDP. There is a strong government commitment to agricultural-led economic development demonstrated by well-structured policies and investment plans (NAIPS); which have translated into strong sector growth, moving from 2.3% in 2015 to an impressive 7% in 2020. Yet, Ghana does not seem to be optimizing the progress made in its inclusive agricultural transformation journey, failing in its potential to adequately link production to processing and markets, and drive the integration with other sectors. Productivity remains low while fragmented high-cost crop production is unable to support a strong processing sub-sector. Founded in 2006, AGRA is a farmer-centered, Africa-led, and partnerships-driven institution that is transforming Africa’s smallholder farming from a solitary struggle to survive to business that thrive . AGRA has been working with actors in the Ghanaian public and private sectors to build and strengthen core agricultural systems (seed, soil health, markets, agricultural finance, extension, and input distribution systems) investing over US$60million since 2007. From 2017 to 2021, AGRA worked with private sector operators and the Ministry of Agriculture to integrate these systems through agribusiness consortia and flagships that provided a suite of services to 2 million smallholder farmers.