In a major push to transform Ghana’s agricultural sector, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research-Savanna Agricultural Research Institute (CSIR-SARI), in collaboration with the African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF), has trained 60 small and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs) on strengthening the biofortified maize value chain. The training, held at Nyankpala near Tamale, equipped participants with practical agribusiness and financial management skills to improve market access, enhance profitability, and address widespread nutritional deficiencies across the country.
The one-day intensive workshop brought together seed producers, grain producers, agro-dealers, aggregators, processors, and extension officers drawn from the Northern Region—actors representing critical nodes in Ghana’s maize value chain. Participants received intensive training in business planning, financial literacy, bookkeeping, costing and pricing, grain quality standards, post-harvest handling, aggregation, contract farming arrangements, market negotiation and strategies for accessing credit and finance.
This workshop fills a critical gap that the training sought to address: the limited access to finance that has hampered the growth of many SMEs in the agricultural sector. Dr. Desmond Sunday Adogoba, Innovations Scaling Specialist at CSIR-SARI, explained that most SMEs lack exposure to financial literacy and business planning, which significantly affects the growth of their businesses. “We are imparting knowledge through this training to enhance their financial literacy, since access to finances for agribusiness has been a very big problem,” Dr. Adogoba noted .investment.
A Strategic Response to Persistent Challenges
The initiative forms part of the Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT) II Maize Compact Project, a continent-wide programme led by AATF and implemented in partnership with national agricultural research institutions across 10 African countries . The training addresses persistent challenges that have long constrained Ghana’s maize sector, particularly weak market linkages between smallholder farmers and reliable grain buyers, limited value addition capabilities, inadequate post-harvest handling practices, and low awareness of market quality standards .
Speaking during the workshop, Dr. Francis Kusi, Director of CSIR-SARI, said building the capacity of value chain actors was critical to transforming Ghana’s maize sector into a more profitable and sustainable industry. He explained that biofortified maize presents enormous opportunities not only to improve household nutrition but also to create viable business opportunities for farmers, processors, traders and entrepreneurs.
Project Coordinator and Research Scientist at CSIR-SARI, Dr. Isaac Kodzo Amegbor also chipped in, noting that the training formed part of broader efforts to ensure that actors throughout the maize value chain possess the technical and business skills required to successfully commercialise improved maize technologies. He disclosed that under the TAAT II Maize Compact Project, CSIR-SARI has established about 38 demonstration fields across Ghana to expose farmers to newly developed maize varieties that combine higher yields with improved nutritional qualities.
More Than Technical Training and Product Development
Biofortified maize refers to maize varieties that have been naturally bred to contain higher levels of essential micronutrients such as vitamin A, iron and zinc. Unlike conventional white maize, these improved varieties help address widespread micronutrient deficiencies—often referred to as “hidden hunger”—particularly among women and children. Nutrition experts have consistently identified vitamin A, iron and zinc deficiencies as major public health challenges across many parts of sub-Saharan Africa. Increased consumption of biofortified crops has therefore become an important strategy for improving diets without requiring significant changes in eating habits.
In Ghana, CSIR-SARI has played a leading role in developing climate-resilient maize varieties capable of withstanding drought, pests and poor soils while delivering higher yields and enhanced nutritional value. The institute’s research also focuses on ensuring that improved varieties meet the grain quality and processing preferences of farmers, traders and processors, thereby encouraging wider adoption.
For SMEs, improved financial management, access to quality seed, stronger market linkages and better understanding of buyer requirements are expected to enhance competitiveness and profitability while creating employment opportunities, particularly for young people and women.
As Ghana continues to pursue its food security and nutrition objectives, partnerships involving research institutions, development organisations and the private sector are increasingly being viewed as critical to accelerating agricultural transformation. Through initiatives such as the TAAT II Maize Compact Project, stakeholders hope to ensure that improved agricultural technologies move beyond research stations into farmers’ fields, local markets and food processing enterprises, ultimately contributing to improved livelihoods and national economic growth.