The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Feed the Future Financing Ghanaian Agriculture Project (USAID FinGAP), a five-year project launched in July 2013 to address one of the key constraints of developing commercial agriculture in Ghana – access to finance – closed its operations on Tuesday July 31, 2018.
Through Feed the Future, the U.S. Government’s global hunger and food security initiative, USAID FinGAP has in the past five years facilitated finance and investment in the maize, rice and soy supply and value chains in the North of Ghana, and improved ancillary services so that agribusinesses can operate more efficiently, as well as contribute towards enhanced food security and inclusive economic growth.
As part of the project, over US$168 million in private capital was disbursed to almost 3,000 agribusinesses for commercial agribusiness development in the maize, rice and soy value chains.
The financing, which includes loans and equity investment to finance working capital and fixed capital investments of these agribusinesses, has benefited almost 170,000 smallholder farmers in northern Ghana – 40% of whom are women- through improved access to inputs, markets and incomes.
It helped to establish networks of financial institutions willing to finance/invest in agribusiness, and business advisory service providers and made them part of the newly established Business Advisory Service Providers Association of Ghana (BASPAG). It equipped them to assist agribusinesses access financing to expand their capacities.