![]() We have talked about access to land, infrastructure, marketing, distribution system, technical support and access to financing and all that. What should further be done to enable smallholders scale up and commercialise their operations? For example, it engages private sector to provide fertiliser in good time at subsidised rates while farmers pay the difference and government pays its subsidy portion. Serious orientation, capacity building in business skills is required.The government shall only channel its subsidy programmes through private sector. ![]() In Nigeria, most of the SHF only wait for government subsidies, input, which come extremely late and affect the crop performance. A serious farmer shall use his money and pay for improved seed, fertiliser, provided he knows the statistics and he is convinced that he is making money. Everything depends on subsidy by the government which more often comes very late. In our country, it is very clear that not all smallholder farmers consider themselves as being in business as opposed to what obtains in other countries.This is due to the mindset that agriculture is not a business but just subsistence farming. What are some of the reasons such a critical population is poorly compensated? Many smallholder farmers live in poverty. Sudan is doing very well on wheat value chain despite being a poor country etc. Cote d’Ivoire, before the crisis, was in the forefront of rural development. While South Africa being an African Hub for most of the manufacturing companies in Europe and the Americas. Also, Ghana is well known for its industrial development due to stable power supply and security. For example, Sudan is a role model in terms of success in wheat value chain development Kenya for SME development and mobile money transaction and innovation Nigeria with huge population and availability of cheap labour etc. This depends on different indices – agriculture, SMEs, specialisation etc. In your opinion, which country is a role model for rural development in Africa? In addition, logistics challenges and high/multiple taxation is prevalent and constitute major challenge to processors. ![]() SHF unless they were trained and well-coordinated will not produce to the desired need of the user. Availability of good/quality raw materials is also a challenge. Similarly, there is high cost of raw materials as a result of crude or subsistence method of farming (in most cases, mechanisation is very low). Major challenges agriculture and food processors are facing in West Africa are general and cut across most of the value chains.They center on limited or unstable power supply as well as high cost of power due to usage of diesel and other sources of power. ![]()
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