OCP Africa contributes to food security with Agribooster Initiative

In its bid to work hand-in-hand with farmers to contribute to unlocking Africa’s vast agricultural potential, OCP Africa, a subsidiary of OCP Group, the world’s first producer of phosphate-based fertilizer, has re-launched its ‘Agribooster Offer’ aimed at boosting food production in the country.

The ‘Agribooster Offer’, a joint effort initiative between OCP Africa and Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA), is a unique initiative for food crops that provides farmers with support for every aspect of the agricultural value chain. Through this OCP Africa and MOFA are connecting farmers to financing and insurance, working with local extension agents to train them on proper fertilizer use, collaborating with other providers to ensure they have the right fertilizers and other inputs.

For his opening remarks at the re-launch at Nasia in the North East Region, Country Manager of OCP Africa Ghana, Samuel Oduro-Asare, said, “OCP introduced this ‘Agribooster Offer’ to support farmers because we realized smallholder farmers were facing

difficulties such as lack of skills, finance and market access that prevented them from improving productivity of their farms and  kept them at a subsistence level.”

“Farmers who embrace this offer will gain access to good quality inputs and financial services, enhance market linkages, and training on Good Agricultural Practices (GAP),” he disclosed. “The projected outcome for the 2019 project is to reach 70,000 farmers with an input consumption increase at 300kg per hectare thereby increasing farm yield from 20% to 40%.  Additionally, a 100% access to finance and market is estimated to lead to a 25% increase in farmers’ incomes. On human resource, the project is expected to absorb a 30-40% gender integration as well as 20-30% youth integration.”

Mr. Oduro continued that the program’s end goal is to help farmers increase their yields and hence their revenues, adding that OCP Africa will consider the needs of farmers and adjust the content of the Agribooster offer to suit them.

Deputy Minister of Agriculture in charge of Annual Crops, Hon. Dr. Sagre Bambangi, said, he is very excited that OCP Africa is complimenting Government’s Planting for Food and Jobs Program (PFJ) to empower farmers with knowledge and skills to maximize the benefits of the usage of the subsidized planting materials and other inputs.

According to the Deputy Minister, like the Agribooster Offer, the Planting for Food and Jobs Program (PFJ) will also improve the marketability of the increased production of food crops by establishing strong linkage between producers, private aggregators, public food programs and private food and feed enterprises.

He thanked OCP Africa for this unique initiative and encouraged all farmers to embrace this offer and enhance their knowledge and skills to increase their yield, revenue and improve their well-being.

OCP Africa first launched the Agribooster offer in 2018 with three (3) different Off-takers to reach Ten thousand (10,000) maize and rice farmers in Volta, Northern, Upper East, Upper West and Eastern region.