Agricultural production in Ghana is expected to receive a major boost following the implementation of a four-year project by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) that seeks to increase food production in the country. The Ghana Agricultural Development and Value Chain Enhancement (ADVANCE) project, which is being funded by USAID, is expected to transform the nation’s agricultural sector through increased competition in domestic, regional and international markets. The project, which would increase the income of rural smallholders and Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), would ultimately contribute to economic growth and poverty reduction in Ghana. Officials said the project is a sure way of stimulating economic growth and reducing poverty to enhance crop production and identify market access interventions to increase trade. Addressing over 50 actors in the value chain system, including farmers, input dealers, processors, aggregators (middlemen) and service providers such as financial institutions and personnel of Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) at an Actors’ Forum, held at Nkoranza, the Project Manager in-charge of Brong Ahafo and Ashanti Regions, Emmanuel Mensah Gyarteng said the project would improve the living conditions of poor Ghanaian farmers through improved farming activities which would increase food production in the country. He said under the four-year project, which began in 2009, training programmes would be organized to build the capacity of the various local value chain stakeholders and also build up links from the farm gate to the end user, explaining that farmers would have access to guaranteed market and good prices for their produce. Mr. Gyarteng therefore advised farmers and the other players to adopt the project and adhere to the technical recommendation that would be impacted to them so as to benefit from the project. Business Advisor of ADVANCE, Nash Ansu outlined three aims of the project, including improvement in competition, creation of easy access to market and provision of access to financial assistance. He said maize, rice and soybeans have initially been targeted. Mr. Ansu said the three crops have been recognized as high potential commodity value chains that can be leveraged to grow fast to enhance the transformation of the agricultural sector. He noted that as a result of the interventions, 50,000 metric tones of maize, 5,000 metric tones of rice and 5,000 metric tones of soybeans had been produced. Mr. Nash stated that there are a lot of breaks in the value chain because of the lack of coordination, which according to him, was hampering agricultural production in the country. This, he observed, would be addressed by the project. The District Chief Executive of Nkoranza South, Kwadwo Agyekum advised farmers to consider farming as a business and appealed to them to change their mindset and engage fully in it. The DCE called for the consolidation of the various stakeholders to build a strong value chain, saying the links would help them to acquire bargaining and negotiation power. According to him, value chain concept “is a big theory which is so important” for ensuring food security in Ghana. He therefore asked the farmers to adopt the project to bring about transformation in the agricultural sector. The participants however expressed concern about the difficulties in accessing funds from the banks and expressed the hope that the implementers of the project would liaise with the banks to grant them loans to boost their operations. Statistics indicate that 30 percent of the national maize output is provided by the Brong Ahafo Region, with 40 percent of this coming from the Nkoranza area. ADVANCE seeks to contribute to the Global Food Security Response (GFSR) goal of increasing agricultural growth, stability and food security. GFSR aims to double food production and intra-regional trade, sustain the agriculture growth process and reduce poverty. From Fred Tettey Alarti-Amoako, Nkoranza