Agric sector attracts key funding target

By Wisdom JONNY-NUEKPE

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has selected Ghana as part of its five priority countries to receive funding for agriculture this year, under the global Food for Progress initiative.

A statement by the USDA stated: “For fiscal year 2025, Food for Progress (FFPr) anticipates awarding five to seven new cooperative agreements for projects of three- to five-years in duration, with priority countries being Ghana, Colombia, Ethiopia, Kenya and Vietnam”.

The Department indicated that notice of funding and information on how to access the funds will be published and the various countries alerted.

Per its current funding trends, Ghana could receive more than US$30million in grants to invest into a preferred agriculture subsector – including irrigation, climate smart farming and agriculture technical capacity building among others.

Since its establishment in 1985, the FFPr has helped developing countries strengthen their agriculture sectors. All FFPr projects operate under the overarching goals of increasing agricultural productivity and expanding markets and trade in agricultural products.

Last year, the FFPr disbursed more than US$200million for agriculture projects in countries including Benin, Cambodia, Madagascar, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, Tunisia and Tanzania.

Focal sponsorship areas of the programme include rice production, soybean, wheat and other areas of significant importance in the host country.

Other focal areas of the FFPr

Food for Progress improves food safety, transparency and efficiency in a target country’s agricultural trade sector through training on sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) system procedures, improving agricultural producers’ and processors’ food safety practices and aligning existing SPS measures with international standards.

The initiative also assists countries to improve implementation and development of food safety regulations by improving post-harvest handling, increasing adoption of climate smart technologies, providing training on best food safety/SPS practices and strengthening market linkages.

Last year, the programme helped Rwanda improve food insecurity, nutrition and trade of export crops by refining domestic food safety frameworks.

By investing more than US$31million in Rwanda during 2024, the FFPr enhanced technical capacity for laboratory testing and international accreditation, also strengthening cold chain capacity.

Also, Tunisia in 2024 received a funding of US$25million -which helped to increase dates’ crop production and strengthened oasis systems by providing training and grants for improved water management and irrigation practices.

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