Provision of business development
services (mentorship) for Agro-dealers, SMEs and FBOs.
Train Bank staff to support term lending across the value chains
HIV/AIDS, Environment, Gender,
High uptake of improved agric. value chain technologies Enhanced Capacity through Mentorship & Strengthen Linkages among actors across
the value chains
Provision of
Guarantee funds to Stanbic Bank to facilitate term lending (financing) across the agricultural value chains
Train farmers & FBOs in improved agricultural
technologies and services including value addition and linkages among
actors • Strengthened Household Income & Employment Opportunities Stellenbosch University https://scholar.sun.ac.za
23 The DANIDA AVCF Project had broad outcomes and goals of which included improvement of welfare and livelihood of farmers, increase in productivity and yield of smallholder farmers and enhancement of access to market participation. Three facilities were implemented to attain these goals: Facility A concentrated on the technical capacity of farmers, Facility B focused on the capacity of banks to lend to smallholder farmers and Facility C dealt with access to term credit (long-term assets finance) by smallholder famers. This study is a collection of essays on finance, productivity, market participation and welfare of smallholder agricultural farmers in Ghana following the DANIDA AVCF Project. It specifically concentrated on interventions under Facilities A and C of the DANIDA AVCF to ascertain their outcome on welfare, productivity and market participation of smallholder farmers.
AGRA’s major focus is mentorship and advisory services which is “Facility A” with the objective of enhancing the technical and business skills of farmers and their organizations, as well as small and medium enterprises (SMEs) along the agricultural value chains. To achieve this objective, AGRA engaged a consortium of three institutions to implement the mentorship and advisory services under the project name the Agricultural Value Chain Mentorship Project (AVCMP). These institutions with their assigned mandates are as follows:
1. International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC) - responsible for small and medium enterprise (SME) support component. The focus among others include training SMEs and business associations in business development and entrepreneurial skills and facilitating business partnerships (market linkages) between SMEs, agro-dealers and identified markets;
2. Savanna Agricultural Research Institute (SARI) - responsible for productivity support component. That is to improve improve technical and farm business management skills of Farmer Based Organizations (FBOs) and their member farmers to adopt the application of Integrated Soil Fertility Management (ISFM) technologies; and
3. Ghana Agricultural Associations Business Information Centre (GAABIC) - responsible for agro- dealer support component. The focus of this component is to facilitate access to finance to agro- dealers for farm inputs and support farmers to expand productivity, improve food security and increase agro-dealer market access.
The Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) was also engaged by AGRA to implement the mentorship and advisory services under the project name Integrated Agricultural Productivity Improvement and Marketing Project (INTAPIMP). ADRA carried out its mandates with the support of
24 service providers (AGRA, 2014; AGRA/DANIDA, 2016). At the end of the AVCF project, 27,856 smallholder farmers of direct beneficiaries had received technical training in integrated soil fertility management (ISFM) (AGRA/DANIDA, 2016).
The AVCF project is one that seeks to bring together all actors within the agricultural value chain. It creates the opportunity to widen the scope of finance by addressing the financing needs of smallholder farmers and also ensuring efficiency through productivity enhancing interventions. Furthermore, the project improves repayment and contributes towards strengthening the network of the set of actors. The project also champions the course for smallholder farmers to focus on producing high value products for the markets and participate directly as sellers or indirectly through sales outlets. AVCF as a market-led approach contributes to minimizing transaction cost and minimizes the risks associated with credit allocation through an improved access to information. In the light of these, the AVCF model could be a significant tool for the development of the agricultural sector of most developing economies. The AVCF and its expected outcomes of improving economic performance of smallholder farmers, improving welfare through income generation and ensuring financial sustainability could be of great relevance to developing economies, development partners as well as development finance institutions. In short, the AVCF is an effective and coordinated model to implement.
1.8. CHAPTER ORGANISATION
This thesis is organised around the four main empirical essays and outcomes of the study in line with the objectives and research questions and is presented in seven chapters. The first chapter introduces the research by highlighting the research problem, the significance and objectives of the study. The second chapter presents an overview of agriculture in Ghana, reviews agricultural sector policies and trends in agricultural performance for major crops.
The first empirical essay is presented in Chapter 3, where we explore the effect of finance on smallholder farm productivity. The second empirical essay appears in Chapter 4, where we estimate the impact of finance on household welfare of smallholder farmers. Chapter 5 presents the third empirical paper, which evaluates the factors influencing smallholder farmers’ market participation and its intensity. In Chapter 6, which contains the last empirical essay, we estimate the impact of integrated soil fertility management (ISFM) on productivity of smallholder farmers. Chapter 7 presents conclusions from the thesis, outlines the main contributions, and provides some policy recommendations.
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