Value chain operators in the agricultural sector are to benefit from a 34 million euro support from the German Development Bank to address medium to long-term financing needs of the sector.
The money would be disbursed through a refinance facility with the Bank of Ghana known as the Outgrower and Value Chain Fund.
Addressing an opening session of a workshop on agricultural financing, the Programme Manager, Market Oriented Agriculture Programme of Gesellschaftfur Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ),
Dr Paul Schuetz, said it was expected that more banks would take advantage of the financing opportunities in agricultural value chains to increase the levels of financing to the agricultural sector in the country.
The workshop was organised by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) in collaboration with the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), with funding from the Northern Rural Development Growth Programme of the African Development Bank (AfDB).
Dr Schuetz said one of the main objectives of the market-oriented agricultural programme was to provide technical support to four value chains in four regions in Ghana to improve productivity and reduce risk.
“Our experiences show that the actors in these and other value chains in the country do not have adequate levels of financing for their activities,” he said.
He expressed optimism that participants in the workshop would forge stronger partnerships for private investments in agriculture in the country.
In a speech read on his behalf, the Minister of Food and Agriculture, Mr Clement Kofi Humado, said a modernised agricultural sector required investments from the public and private sectors of the economy, adding that the ministry was committed to public investments in critical areas in the sector.
Such investments, he said, were meant to leverage the critical mass of private sector investments required to transform the sector.
He said over the past decade, the agricultural sector had experienced a period of both strong growth and decline.
He said to maintain a consistent pattern of growth, all stakeholders in the agricultural sector should work hard to attain and sustain the ultimate annual targets of six to eight per cent growth envisaged in the sector’s policies and strategies.
Story: Zainabu Issah
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