'Help Address Constraints Facing Agric Sector'

By Kingsley Asare

Sponsors of this year's Annual Pre-Harvest Agribusiness Conference have called for increased partnerships to help address the constraints facing the agricultural sector in the country.

According to them, lack of access to finance and modern technology, inadequate access to inputs and market continue to militate against the growth of the sector.

Against this backdrop, they have called on other corporate bodies to come on board and support the programme to sustain it.

Speaking in Accra on Wednesday at a media interaction on the Annual Pre-Harvest Agribusiness Conference, Danquah Addo-Yobo, the West Africa Regional Director of Yara, which is the lead sponsor of the programme, said his outfit was proud to be the lead sponsor of the programme, saying Yara had been supporting the programme since its inception.

The other sponsors of the programme are Kosmos Energy and Ecobank Ghana Limited.

This year's Pre-Harvest Agribusiness Conference is scheduled to take place at Tamale in the Northern Region on September 25-27, this year.

Under the theme, 'Market accessibility: The structured and sustainable pathway', the programme is expected to attract 3200 agribusiness business operators and players from the agricultural value chain across the country.

He said Yara's objective of sponsoring the programme was to introduce farmers to good agronomic practices to help them increase their yields and productivity.

Mr Addo-Yobo said since joining the programme, the productivity of some farmers who participated in the programme had more than tripled.

According to him, some farmers who were harvesting a tonne of maize per hectare were currently harvesting between six and seven tonnes per hectare.

The Head of Small and Medium Enterprises of Ecobank Ghana, Kingsley Adofo-Addo said the objective of Ecobank Ghana was to help farmers secure capital to finance their business operations and expose them to the digital economy.

He said Ecobank involvement with the programme was to help increase access to markets by the farmers involved in the Pre-Harvest Conference and also to link them to input suppliers to facilitate their businesses.

Mr Adofo-Addo said since joining the programme about five years ago, Ecobank Ghana had advanced about $20 million to players in the agribusiness value chain.

"Our target is to advance $5 million in seven years as part of the programme, but we have done $20 million in a period of five years," he said.

The Director of Corporate Affairs of Kosmos Energy, George Sarpong said the objective of Kosmos Energy was to "invest and inspire the players in the agribusiness value chain".

He also said the vision of Kosmos Energy was to help farmers leverage on technology to improve their business and also attract the youth to the agricultural sector and inspire them to consider agriculture as a business.

The Chief Executive Officer of Agrihouse Foundation, Alberta Akyaa Akosa, organisers of the Annual Pre-Harvest Agribusiness Conference said the programme was the leading agricultural market linkage and training platform in the country.

She said the programme had impacted positively on players in the agribusiness sector in the country and helped them improve their businesses.

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