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World Development Report launched
Accra, March 5, Ghanadot/GNA –
Agriculture is a vital development tool for achieving the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that call for halving
extreme poverty and hunger by 2015, the World Development
Report (WDR) launched in Accra on Wednesday said.
Launched as part of the World Bank Development Dialogue
Series, the Report titled Agriculture for Development is the
30th in the series and for the first time in 25 years
focuses on agriculture, an indication that agriculture and
the rural sectors have suffered from neglect and
underinvestment for over two decades.
It is on the theme: “Rethinking Agriculture: What We Know
Now, What We Don’t Know.”
The Report provides guidance to governments and the
international community on designing and implementing
agriculture for development agendas that make a difference
in the lives of hundreds of millions of rural poor.
Giving an overview of the Report, lead author Derek Byerlee
said agriculture was the strong option for spurring growth,
overcoming poverty and enhancing food security in
sub-Saharan Africa.
He said agricultural productivity growth was vital for
stimulating growth in other parts of the economy but
accelerated growth required sharp productivity increase in
smallholder farming combined with more effective support to
millions coping as subsistence farmers many of whom were in
the rural areas.
“Agriculture can offer the pathway out of poverty if efforts
are made to increase productivity in the staple foods
sector, connect small holders to rapidly expanding high
market values.”
Ghana was not left out success story. Mr. Byerlee announced
that rural poverty was halved with increased agricultural
productivity, higher cocoa prices, income diversification
and remittances.
He said recent improved performance held promise and noted
that the Report identified many emerging successes that
could be scaled up.
Mr. Byerlee mentioned high value labour intensive products
for external, regional and domestic markets, strong growth
opportunities, technological innovations, weather and price
risk insurance as some of the improved opportunities.
He said the Report recommended a three-pronged
agriculture-for-development-approach of competitiveness of
smallholders, market development, better subsistence and
strengthening government for better implementation from the
local to global levels.
Mr. Edouard Tapsoba, former Assistant Director General, Food
and Agriculture Organization (FAO), blamed the World Bank
for the sorry states of Africa’s agriculture sector and its
subsequent decline in resources but added that focusing on
agriculture after 25 years of neglect was a step in the
right direction because it was never too late.
He told the gathering that Africa had suffered in the lost
decades due to conditions and prescriptions of the World
Bank which had negative effects on the sector as well as
decline of resources from other donors.
Some of these conditions had led to the indiscriminate
collapse of state enterprises, he said, and observed that
with trade liberalization it was extremely difficult for two
different economies (developing and the developed) to
compete.
“Why encourage it?” he asked and noted that if nothing was
done food would become very expensive in developing
countries where the bulk of the population was into
agriculture.
The World Bank has made a mistake in its agricultural policy
and if the story had been different two decades ago, Africa
would not have made a sluggish development in agriculture.
He welcomed the return of the Bank to agriculture and urged
it to team up with the FAO, Millennium Challenge Account and
other stakeholders to help achieve sustainable agriculture
development in Africa.
Food and Agriculture Minister Ernest Debrah said though
signs were positive for Ghana more needed to be done to
enhance food security.
He said, with the right incentives agriculture could halve
poverty and halt migration to the urban centres and
expressed the hope that the Report would help the country
with the needed input in enhancing agricultural development.
GNA
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