Vision 2020 for Agriculture in Ghana Pt. 1

Vision 2020 for Agriculture in Ghana.
[15 days until prototype of course]

My friend Guillaume did recently this series of blogposts on his challenges in Ghana, This inspired me to do the same with Agriculture. And I’m kinda stealing the title from Ryan’s post. 

Part 1: For a stronger role of the private sector in providing extensions services to farmer in Ghana.
– Okay, that’s a long title, but I couldn’t find shorter, and less serious. So let me explain:

Extension services refers to any kind of information about best-practices provided to farmers. Answers to questions like, How should farmers plant their maize? What is the ideal distance between cashew trees? Why is my plantain trees covered with white spots? People who provide those answers are called Agricultural Extensions Agents (AEAs). Like engineers make the bridge between science and humanity, AEAs extend the research institutes’ knowledge to farmers.

Unrelated picture 1:me and my host-sister Huda

In the present system, AEAs work for the government, under the Ministry of Food and Agriculture. This leads to the following issues:
– AEAs are underfinanced. Less then 10% of government’s budget goes to agriculture. So they are asked to change the world, but given very limited ressources. Since couple of months, due to a inflation crisis, they have not received any money for their fuel, so they are basically volunteering right now.
– Not enough AEAs. Extension agents are usually responsible of 2000-3000 farmers. For a 40 hours week, that’s about a minute given per farmer.
– AEAs wear multiple hats at the same time. In Canada, they would have all the following titles: land surveyers, agroeconomists, agriculturalists, business advisors, teachers, etc. They are asked to be experts in every crops, animals and processing methods.
– They work by area. The underlying assumption is that all people in the same place require the same information services, which is untrue. They are asked to answer thousands of different questions every week, making the whole process of information transfer inefficient.
– Decisions are centralized. Let’s say an extension agent found a really good way to teach agribusiness to farmers. Even if the results were delivered, at the end of year, it’s the government who decides in which programs to put the money. And so any novelty born at the bottom is killed by the policies at the top. This is what happened to the Agriculture As Business program.

For these reasons, I call for a stronger private sector in extension services for 2020. In clear, that would mean that the private extension agents (PEAs) would be paid by the customers. What would it look like? Farmers could pay each time they receive a service, say 5 cedis to get your land measured and mapped. Or they could pay every year, say 1 cedi to get supports for Cashew trees.
– Logically, they would serve just the right amount of farmers. Less people would diminish their revenues, and more people would harm the quality of their service.
– PEAs would only wear one hat, say Fertilizer expert. Farmers would have their set of PEAs corresponding to their needs.
– They would work under competence, not area. Each PEA would therefore become real experts in their respective fields.
– Free-market principles would make the whole thing dynamic. PEAs would contantly have to adapt their methods, if they don’t want to be outcast by competition.

In my view, this would result in better services provided to farmers, therefore a stronger agricultural sector for Ghana. But there’s always the risk that the poorest of the poorest, who would need the information most, couldn’t aford the services. Or that some necessary areas of extension services would not be profitable for private companies, are therefore be left out.

Unrelated picture 2: Me dancing azonto. Youtube it, it’s really weird.

So why isn’t it happening? My team leader Erin, got the answer. She presented the idea of paying for information to a rural farmer, and started at 1$/year, hoping to increase the price and see how much would a farmer pay. But immediatly, the guy replied no: why paying for something that they already can have for free?

What’s preventing a market from emerging is purely the farmer’s perception. First, we have to convince farmers that paying themselves would result in better quality services. But Extension Agents have already struggles convincing them that planting in rows is more efficient in the end. The idea is miles from them.

I’m lying.

There’s already one example of private extension agents: veterinarians. Even thought AEAs also wear that hat, most people are ready to pay for a rapid, efficient check-up. My hypothesis is that lifestock and poultry farmers have a better business mindset, and that therefore see the use.

Another great example coming is the project on which my friend Alex is working: Farmerline. The idea is that farmers far from urban centers could send sms or leave a message, and an extension agent equipped with a database would reply back. They are still in the design process.

So where does my placement fit in all this? No where, since I’m working under a public Farm Institute. It’s a little streched, but we’re intending on making people pay for the course I’m designing. It’s a simple of testing the idea. Would people be ready to pay 15 cedis, So less then 9$, for a 15 hour Agribusiness Training program? The answer next week.

Meanwhile, you can tell me what you think on all this.

Julien