Mr Fifi Kwetey, Minister of Food and Agriculture on Monday launched the Micro Reforms for African Agribusiness (MIRA) project, to support the development of sound policies for sustainable agricultural growth.

The project is to provide African governments with technical assistance for identifying, prioritizing and reforming specific agricultural regulations and policies deterring agribusinesses working in smallholder value chains.

The project is being implemented in five countries namely Ghana, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Burkina Faso and Nigeria, and supported by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), a non-governmental organization.

Mr Kwetey said a viable and sustainable economic development in the country could only be achieved through the transformation and modernization of the agricultural sector.

He said a number of policies such as the Medium Term Agricultural Development Programme, the Accelerated Agricultural Growth and Development Strategy, and the Food and Agriculture Sector Development Policy (FASDEP II), were formulated to guide the interventions towards the growth of the agricultural sector.

Mr Kwetey said FASDEP II is to ensure the vision to modernize agriculture and structurally transform the economy to improve food security, employment, reduce poverty, improve access to markets and ensure sustainable management of land and environment.

He said the FASDEP II adopts the commodity value chain approach to enhance productivity of all operators and the sector wide approach, to enhance the participation of key stakeholders in the growth and development of the sector.

Mr Kwetey commended AGRA for investing in the programme areas of agricultural technologies, especially seeds and soil health technologies, market incentives, land and property rights and climate change adaptation.

Dr Steven Were Omamo, Director of Policy and Advocacy, AGRA, said African countries in their Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Programme

Plans and other agricultural policy strategies, aim to attract private sector investment in smallholder agriculture.

He said excessive requirements for export or import licenses and permits increased costs for local businesses looking to access new markets and the extent to which they can respond to market demand signals.

Dr Omamo said the MIRA project was design to strengthen and sharpen African governments’ demand for regulatory reforms by supporting efforts to identify and assess regulations that affect private sector investment in smallholder value chains.