areas of Intervention
- As part of the effort to reduce post-harvest losses, increase value addition for key cash and food crops and link farmers to market, the key areas of intervention are as follows:
- Rehabilitation of moribund rice processing mills across the country.
- Establishment of rice production clusters across the nine (9) key districts.
- Establishment of the Strategic Grain Reserve, that can also provide storage credit to support farmers to get the best price for their produce.
- Adoption of policies to promote institutional buying of locally produced food for schools, military, police and correctional service centres.
Overview
There is a huge infrastructure deficit in the form of inadequate aggregation centres and ill-equipped storage and processing facilities that continue to hinder value addition to locally produced goods. These, together with poor road networks, unreliable electricity, and high transport costs are frequently cited as some of the perennial causes of post-harvest losses which can be between 30% – 40% of annual agricultural production (FAO, 2021).
Moreover, despite the significant potential demonstrated by the agro-processing sector over the past decade, particularly in the processing of commodities like oil palm and cashew, which together account for approximately 16% of agricultural value added (World Bank in 2016), the sector faces persistent limitations. These constraints include the inadequate capacity of processors and the absence of regulatory frameworks that establishes equitable pricing and quality standards, thereby impeding private sector engagement in this sub-sector. Additionally, challenges such as limited access to financial resources and the underutilization of technology for the distribution and processing of agricultural outputs further exacerbate the difficulties faced by the sector.