AGRA Project to Enhance Input Access in Africa
9 December 2013 
Koblah Agbeta holds up rice seeds from his farm in Abutia Kpota, Ghana.
Photo credit: Gates Foundation
Creative Commons license
The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) on Monday announced a five-year project that seeks to increase incomes of smallholder farmers by creating an improved policy environment in Africa.
The initiative, called Micro Reforms for African Agribusiness (MIRA), is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and will identify, prioritize and reform specific agricultural policies and regulations that currently deter or limit private investment in small- and medium-sized agribusinesses operating in smallholder agricultural value chains.
Over a period of five years, AGRA said it aims to motivate at least 25 significant policy or regulatory reforms in selected countries, leading to measurable increases in private sector investment in local agribusinesses. “The project is expected to increase the number of smallholder farmers accessing improved technologies supplied by agribusinesses operating in local staple food value chains. It will also help them access stable, predictable income-generating market opportunities,” AGRA said.
The enhanced access to input and output markets is expected to lead to increased smallholder productivity and incomes, and reduced poverty for smallholder farm-dependent families, AGRA added.
“We are very excited about this new initiative,” says AGRA President Ms. Jane Karuku. “It will help African Governments unlock agricultural potential in their countries by supporting their efforts to develop progressive agricultural policies that will attract increased private investment in smallholder agricultural value chains. The initiative aims reform retrogressive agricultural regulations that deter rather than encourage such investment”.
Dr. Steven Were Omamo, AGRA’s Director of Policy and Advocacy, said, “Current regulations often discourage private investment in small- and medium-sized agribusinesses that serve the needs of smallholder farmers. The project will help build the capacity of African Government leaders and analysts to make better-informed, economically-robust assessments and decisions about which regulations need to be reformed in order to facilitate increased private investment in smallholder value chains.
AGRA listed three major outcomes that are expected:
- Reformed agricultural policies and regulations creating more conducive environments for private sector investment in local agribusinesses operating smallholder value chains in five countries;
- Increased private sector investment in the “throughput capacity” of existing and new local agribusinesses – those supplying inputs to smallholders and/or purchasing farm outputs from them; and
- At least 25 significant policy or regulatory reforms that induce measurable increases in private sector investment in local agribusinesses operating in smallholder agrifood value chains.
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