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The farmlands of the Accra Plains will benefit from a US $64 million gravity-based irrigation canal to help boost agricultural production in the region.
A public-private partnership (PPP) with private sector investors, the 69.8 km facility will feed about 11,000 hectares of farmland that will be developed under the Ghana Commercial Agriculture Project (GCAP).
GCAP is a US $145 million 5-year project for the development and expansion of commercial agriculture. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is providing a grant component of US $45 million, while the World Bank will provide US $100 million as a loan to Ghana for the project.
The project seeks to develop Ghana s agricultural sector by promoting inclusive commercialisation of selected commodity under out-grower schemes and similar contract farming arrangements.
It focuses on commodities including maize, rice, fruit, vegetables and soya, and is making substantial investment into irrigation systems and infrastructure to ensure production in the targeted areas.
What we are doing is feasibility to select the best PPP model that will be suitable for the project, and then put for tender.
We want to move away from government spending money and putting up infrastructure that will not be well-managed, to dealing with a businessman who will do it and charge the farmers benefitting from the facility and later paying off the equity.
The project will finance the rehabilitation and construction of agricultural storage infrastructure and processing facilities in the Savanna Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) zone, which comprises the 3 northern regions and parts of Brong Ahafo.
This includes the rehabilitation of agricultural storage facilities and warehouses. A total of US $18.5 million has been released to fund aspects of the project. This is made up of an initial disbursement of US $9.5 million for 31 agribusinesses for this year s cropping season and US $9 million for other project interventions.