The Bank of Ghana is to set up a GHC500 million fund to support agriculture in the country, President Akufo-Addo has announced.

Speaking as part of a Heads of State and Governments high level panel discussion at the 2018 African Green Revolution Forum in Kigali, Rwanda, President Akufo Addo said one of the major difficulties that Ghanaian farmers have is access to credit support for their farming activities. His government has therefore decided to devise a financial instruction that will give farmers access to credit.

“The Bank of Ghana is establishing a fund with some five hundred million cedis, which is roughly over 100 million dollars, which is going to act as some sort of insurance for the commercial banks to be able to give out loans at reasonable rates to farmers,” President Akufo Addo said.

Fertilizer Supply

The President in his submissions identified the supply of fertilizer as one additional measure that government is undertaking to support the growth of the Agriculture sector in the country.

“We are now also focusing very seriously on establishing a very secure and reliable supply of fertilizer. So far in Ghana, we are employ something like 12 kilos of fertilizer per hectare. That is way below even the average within the ECOWAS region of 20 kilos and the global average of a 150 kilos per hectare,” the President said.

A change in attitude towards agriculture by the people of Africa is a major paradigm shift that is needed on the continent, President Akufo Addo observed. He added that the prevailing notion in the mind of the average African that, “Agriculture is what people who don’t have anything else to do, do”, ought to change. “Agriculture, is currently looked upon as something to escape from and not something which will provide a good life which will make an important contribution to the development of the society”.

The AGRF

The African Green Revolution Forum, (AGRF) is considered the world’s most important and impactful forum for African agriculture, pulling together stakeholders in the agricultural landscape to take practical actions and share lessons that will move African agriculture forward. First established in 2010, following a three-year series of African Green Revolution Conferences (AGRC) held in Oslo, Norway from 2006-2008, the AGRF has emerged as ‘Africa’s leading platform of agriculture platforms’ that brings together a range of critical stakeholders in the African agricultural landscape to discuss and commit to programs, investments, and policies that can counter the major challenges affecting the agriculture sector on the continent.

Since the first AGRF was held in Ghana in 2010 under the leadership of President Mills, the Forum has annually brought together Heads of State, Ministers, business leaders, development partner leadership, researchers, thought leaders, farmer organization representatives, youth entrepreneurs, and other critical stakeholders to focus on the actions and policies needed to move the continental agenda forward.