Hybrid seeds for maize farmers
DuPONT Pioneer and the USAID have launched the Ghana Advanced Maize Seed Adoption Programme (GAMSAP) to help improve the productivity of smallholder maize farmers in the country.
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The collaboration is to help provide maize farmers with hybrid seed and effective linkages between agriculture and industry in Ghana.
The investment in the project will amount to more than US$4 million over the next four years.
The programme will also advance the use and acceptance of high-quality inputs and production techniques by a network of farmer dealers.
“This GAMSAP endorses DuPont’s commitment to address global food security and nutrition challenges”, Madam Lystra Antoine, Global Agriculture Development Director – DuPont Pioneer, said.
According to her, the collaboration with USAID seeks to improve household incomes of smallholder maize farmers by improving their access to credit, hybrid seeds, better agronomy, secure input and output markets, post-harvest handling practices and market linkages with end users.”
Programme model
The programme is modelled on a similar one undertaken in Ethiopia by ACDI-VOCA, the implementing organisation in Ghana.
GAMSAP aims to: Increase adoption of hybrid maize seed and related good agricultural practices to increase productivity and profitability; Improve input supply chain to improve farmer access to improved technology; Improve post-harvest handling practices; as well as increase market linkages with end buyers.
The programme also seeks to partner other input providers, farm machinery suppliers and local aggregators and processors of maize to provide guaranteed markets for maize. Dizengoff Ghana has been appointed as the distributor of DuPont Pioneer seed in Ghana.
The USAID Ghana Mission Director, Mr Jim Bever, said, “High quality seed (both local and international) is a key to the modernisation and profitability of the agricultural sector. This partnership is designed to demonstrate the benefits of these new varieties and encourage farmers to invest in their businesses with productivity-boosting technologies,”
Agric in Ghana
Ghana’s agriculture is dominated by small-scale producers with average farm sizes of about 1.2 hectares and low use of technology.
Maize smallholder farmers also account for over 80 per cent of production, though their yield per hectare averages around 1.5 tonnes per hectare, which is significantly below the average two tons per hectare of maize yields in Africa and 10 tons per hectare in the U.S.
It is, therefore, expected that by adopting hybrid seed and using improved farming inputs and techniques, participating farmers will be able to achieve significant productivity gains and increased profitability.
The collaboration supports the vision of the Ghana Medium Term Agricultural Sector Investment Plan (METASIP) by promoting the adoption of new improved seeds through demonstration plots and field training sessions aimed at small holder farmers.
