12 African countries benefit from a $60 million initiative to improve Agriculture

The African Enterprise Challenge Fund (AECF), a pan-African development finance organization has launched an initiative which will enable the promotion of food and security in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Ghana, Nigeria, Mali, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, Malawi, and Mozambique are the countries that will benefit from the initiative.

The AECF launched a $60 million fund to support aspects of food security programmes in the beneficiary countries over a six-year period.

The fund, which was launched on Tuesday, December 4, in Accra, the capital of Ghana, intended to support agro-seed companies in these countries, will help increase substantially the incomes of thousands of smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa by transferring to them in-demand, high-yielding and climate-smart seed and planting material technologies.

The grant will be given to seed companies who have proven to have the necessary programs in place to reach farmers with high-yielding seeds they produce.

Speaking at the programme, the adviser to the government of Ghana on agriculture development, Mr. John Manfo said that there is the need to help farmers get the right seeds for production.

Adding that, “Smallholder farmers are those who have fed us over the years and so if we make them more efficient our agriculture will become efficient.”