To enhance food security across the country, Yara Ghana is supporting farmers, particularly smallholders, with USD20 million worth of fertilisers.
The farmers will be provided with free bags of the fertiliser in a package, about 18,000 metric tonnes, to ensure that they had enough to sustain food production in the country.
Mr Danquah Addo-Yobo, the Managing Director, Yara Ghana, said this at the launch of Yara’s ‘‘Grow Ghana” initiative to benefit over 100,000 smallholder farmers and partners to enhance the country’s food security.
The project is a partnership between Yara, Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and African Fertiliser and Agribusiness Partnership (AFAP), he said.
The initiative is to help smallholder farmers to grow more food and prevent food insecurity to enhance their livelihoods.
Mr Addo Yobo said Techiman and Tamale would receive the first batch of fertilizer before the other regions.
He said COVID-19 and the Russia-Ukraine war worsened inaccessibility of affordable fertilisers globally, impeding farmers’ ability to feed their communities and threatening food security.
Nana Aisha Mohammed, the Country Director, AFAP, said as implementing partners, they would support with the monitoring and execution of the project, and post-impact assessment.
She said the AFAP would provide capacity building for farmers and ensure they used the product adequately and appropriately to maximise yield and improve productivity.
Nana Mohammed said similar initiatives were launched in other countries under the Sustain Africa Initiative, and that more of such projects would be implemented to benefit farmers.
Mr Lionel Kadja, the Regional Head, AGRA-West Africa, said: “Grow Ghana” was the starting point to extending the initiative to more countries.
He said they would support more governments in West Africa, as was done for Ghana, to assisting farmers in “these very difficult times.”
Yara International is the world’s leading crop nutrition company and a provider of environment and agricultural solutions.
AGRA is an African-led, African-based organisation founded in 2006 that seeks to catalyse agriculture transformation in Africa while AFAP is an independent non-profit organisation founded in 2012 focused on market-driven business solutions in the agriculture inputs and agribusiness value-chain.