Findings from
Diagnostic Country Report (DCR)
Ghana
Maize Sector
Outline
• Policy Environment– Agriculture Sector Reforms and
Objectives
• National Seed Policy: Implication on Production/Farmers
• Fertilizer sector reforms and implications for Farmers
• National Food Buffer Stock Company(NAFCO)
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1.
Policy Environment- Agriculture Sector
Reforms and Objectives
• Medium Term Agricultural Development Programme (MTADP)
• Accelerated Agricultural Development Strategy (AAGDS)
• Food and Agriculture Sector Development Policy (FASDEP I&II)
• Access to Agricultural Inputs
• Plants and Fertilizer Act, 2010 (Act 803)
• National Seed Policy, 2013
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National Seed Policy -Salient Features
Objective: Development & establishment of well-coordinated,
comprehensive & sustainable private sector-driven seed industry.
• Applicable to all priority crops:
⁻ Cereals: Maize, Rice, Sorghum, Millet
⁻ Legumes: Groundnut, Cowpeas, Soybean
⁻ Roots and Tubers: Cassava, Yam, Cocoyam, sweet potato
⁻ Tree Crops: Mango, Orange,
⁻ Fruits and Vegetables: Pineapple, Plantain, Pawpaw, Banana
• Earlier strategy: Heavily based on public sector investments and
subsidized seed supplies to the farmers
• Long-run: impact difficult to monitor and costly, leading to
closure of publicly owned Ghana Seed Company
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National Seed Policy- Salient Features
Current situation:
• Private sector involvement encouraged and supported
• Gov. does not interfere with prices, which is determined
based on cost of production and packaging.
• Gov. only regulates the activities in this sector
Seed Import:
• Private sector imported hybrid maize seed stocks
• Govt to prevent dumping of untested seeds - Plants and
Fertilizer Act 2010 (Act 803)
• Govt and private sector to develop in-country production of
hybrid varieties to substitute imports.
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Impact of National Seed Policy
Access to Maize Seeds:
47.9% reported they have many options, 30.7 percent had
few options and 21.4% indicated they have no option.
(Nearly 80% of the responding farmers indicated having
multiple options for obtaining maize seeds)
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Impact of National Seed Policy
• Access to maize seed
– About 37.1% ranked the availability of maize seed
as very good, 47.9% ranked it good, 11.4% and
3.6% ranked availability as neutral and bad
respectively
• Affordability of maize seed
– 64.3% considered available maize seed as
affordable while 35.7% considered it expensive.
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Impact of National Seed Policy
Impact on Seed Quality
• Indicators of seed quality: (i) germination rate and (ii)
yield
• About 38.6% of the farmers ranked the quality of maize
seed as very good, 45.7% rated it as good, 13.6% and
12.1% rated the quality as neutral and bad respectively.
(Over 84% of the respondent farmers were happy with
the quality of seeds obtained)
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Fertilizer Sector Reform -Salient Features
• Early 1990s, Ghana liberalized fertilizer sector,
abolishing Gov’t monopoly of imports and
distribution
• Since 2006, the country’s fertilizer imports have been
increasing
• Observed increase in fertilizer prices began in 2007,
however, fertilizer consumption has increased in
Ghana primarily due to the fertilizer subsidy scheme
• In 2010, the Plants and Fertilizer Act was enacted.
• The Act seeks to regulate the importation
(particularly quality), sale and production of fertilizers
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Subsidy Program:
• In response to rise in global fertilizer prices, Gov’t
reintroduced subsidy program in partnership with the
country’s importers
• It started with a voucher system, which was disbanded
after 2 years due to operational deficiencies and delays
in payment to importers.
• Subsidized fertilizer was not always reaching the target
- smallholder farmers
• In 2010, Gov’t and importers negotiated a discounted
price for selling fertilizer.
• The price difference was paid by Gov’t
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Impact of Fertilizer Sector Reforms
• Sources: 24.3% of respondent obtained fertilizer from public
source (MoFA), 75% respondents buy their fertilizer from
private source, while 0.7% purchased from both
Year
•Increased importation of
fertilizer made fertilizer better
available to users
Total
2003
92,807
2006
189,879
2009
335,186
2012
3,362,532
• The increased fertilizer usage can be attributed to a
combination of subsidy (PFA, 2010) and private sector
participation in the dealership.
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Impact of Fertilizer Sector Reforms
Availability of Fertilizer:
• Fertilizer was available during the planting season.
(Over 72% of respondent farmers got fertilizers on time,
while 28% did not)
• Challenges: prospects of subsidized fertilizer did not
provide incentive to buy fertilizer from the open market
and when the subsidized fertilizer was available, farmers
did not receive relevant information on time.
• About 14.3% of the respondents had shifted from
public sources to private sources.
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Impact of Fertilizer Sector Reforms
Affordability of Fertilizer:
• About 77.9% ranked fertilizers as very expensive, 21.4%
ranked them as expensive while only 0.7% were neutral about
price of fertilizer available to them.
• In last five years, 72.9% respondents indicated fertilizers have
become expensive while 9.2% responded affordability has
increased, 17.9% indicated there was no change.
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National Food Buffer Stock Company (NAFCO)
NAFCO: state-owned-enterprise set up in 2010 to buy, preserve,
store, sell, and distribute grains in warehouses across the country.
Its part of the Gov’t strategy to reduce post-harvest losses, ensure
price and supply stability and establish emergency grain reserves.
NAFCO faced difficulties to reach farmers in remote areas, 73
Licensed Buying Companies (LBCs) have been contracted by NAFCO
to purchase maize and rice from farmers at a minimum purchasing
price (i.e. floor price)
NAFCO activities have not impacted the market in terms of
quantity managed, price stabilization, post-harvest losses and
emergency requirements
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CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS
• Reforms has brought about increased private
sector participation in the input (seed) sector.
• The product market reforms has not impacted
competition within the staple(maize) sector.
• The extent to which inputs sector competition
has led to consumer and producer welfare need
time to be examined further.
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THANK YOU
FOR YOUR
ATTENTION
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