The decade-long partnership between the International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC) and the Government of Ghana through its Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA), has received a boost to promote agriculture in Ghana. On September 29, 2023, the two parties strengthened their working relationship by signing a Memorandum of Understanding. The refreshed partnership will benefit hundreds of thousands of smallholder farmers across the country. The partnership aims to help these farmers increase their agricultural productivity and income.
Like many other countries in West Africa and elsewhere, Ghana’s agriculture sector has great potential, and unlocking this will deliver immense support to the economy and well-being of millions of vulnerable people. It will take a variety of interventions to accomplish this and to reap the benefits.
“At IFDC, we are dedicated to promoting relevant technologies, soil fertility management, crop productivity, commodity value chains, market information systems, and supportive policy on both public and private sector development in the agriculture sector,” says Dr. Oumou Camara, IFDC Vice President, Programmes. “We use strong partnerships to provide solutions and make our expertise available to advance the agriculture value chain.”
Through this agreement, set to run for five years with the possibility for renewal, MoFA has committed to facilitating the implementation of IFDC’s activities by creating a framework conducive to collaboration that will align national fertiliser quality control regulations and the fertiliser subsidy mechanism with harmonised sub-regional guidelines. The agreement covers areas including strengthening the fertiliser value chain, soil health and fertility management, capacity-building, and climate change risk mitigation.
“MoFA will make agricultural information and data available to IFDC and will participate in analysis and production of technical reports and scientific articles. The ministry will regularly share with IFDC its priorities and needs at the national level for consideration in the development of new projects and the search for funding. Moreover, MoFA will provide IFDC with human resources and expertise to contribute to studies and consultations,” said Mr. Robert Patrick Ankobiah, Chief Director of MoFA. “The ministry will also identify themes in the soil-water-plant nexus for in-depth master’s and doctoral studies and will support the validation and scaling up of innovations developed by IFDC and other partners.”
IFDC has been working in Ghana since 2002, contributing to the national agricultural agenda and maintaining a close relationship with MoFA. IFDC has supported the development and deployment of innovative fertiliser data access tools, including the Ghana Fertiliser Dashboard.
Currently, IFDC implements several key projects and programmes in Ghana, including:
- Toward Sustainable Clusters in Agribusiness through Learning in Entrepreneurship (2SCALE), a programme that incubates and accelerates inclusive business through partnerships with companies.
- Fertilizer Research and Responsible Implementation (FERARI), a public-private programme that integrates an on-the-ground implementation programme to develop the fertiliser value chain with transdisciplinary research by doctoral and post-doctoral researchers.
- The Feed the Future Enhancing Growth through Regional Agricultural Input Systems (EnGRAIS) project for West Africa, which aims to increase the availability and use of fertilisers for smallholder farmers in West Africa.
- The AfricaFertiliser initiative, the premier source for fertiliser statistics and information in Africa.
