Accra, March 5, 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.
