Farmer and Enterprise Training in Commercial Agriculture Activity

To accelerate the development of commercial skills and build capacity among Farmer-based Organizations (each an “FBO”) and their business partners, including entities adding value to agricultural crops such as processors and marketers. MiDA invites Farmer Based Organisations (FBOs) and Small and Medium Scale Enterprises along the Agriculture Value Chain in the MiDA Intervention Districts to contact Directorates of MoFA in the Districts to participate in the MCA Ghana Programme.
Participating FBOs Generally, MiDA is looking at priming 1800 FBOs which will later be pruned to 1200 FBOs on competitive basis and based on the advertised criteria. (Daily Graphic of 22/10/2008) The selection and priming of the participating FBOs is being done by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture on behalf of MiDA and based on the agreed criteria. Currently, the first batch of 600 FBOs will be selected and primed in March 2008 whilst the last batch of 300 FBOs are to be selected and primed early next year 2009. FBOs that are not selected in the first batch for participation may be prepared for selection during the subsequent batches Each batch of selected FBOs will undergo a 3 phased training as follows;-

• Phase 1 – Strengthening the Business Capacity of FBOs
• Phase 2 – Technical and Infrastructural Investment
• Phase 3 – Assistance to maximized sales volumes

At the end of phase one of the training, all participating FBOs will be required to develop a Business Plan.