The government of Ghana has launched the six-year, $113 million Ghana Agricultural Sector Investment Program (GASIP), reports African Business Network.

The project, which is funded by the International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD) and which is being implemented by Ghana’s Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) was designed to scale up agricultural value chains through infrastructure development, technology transfer, and research initiatives to support food production in the face of climate change and climbing market demand.

The program is also designed to act as an institutional framework for long-term supplemental private sector financing for agricultural value chain development in underserved areas. It will also serve as a means of connecting smallholder farmers with more scaled-up agribusinesses as a way to drive growth in the sector, according to Footprint2Africa.

Ghana’s Minister for Food and Agriculture, Alhaji Mohammed Limuna Muniru, told African Business Network that a call will be issued calling for the submission of business plans from operations along the agriculture supply chain that would be potential recipients of project funds.

“GASIP will then evaluate these proposals to see how these businesses, if supported, will ultimately increase the incomes of smallholder farmers – especially the rural poor,” said Muniru.

The program is aiming to address specific challenges faced by the country’s farmers through the funding of warehouses, tractors, road construction, and post-harvest loss reclamation, and will match grants for the purchase of agricultural machinery, irrigation implementation, while also serving to increase access to capital through forging connections with financial institutions, according to Fresh Plaza.

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Lynda Kiernan