Agritech West Africa

Ghana's Minister of Food and Agriculture, Eric Opoku recently held a public briefing on the innovative 'Feed Ghana Programme,' representing a crucial step forward in tackling Ghana's pressing agricultural challenges while enhancing food security and economic stability

The programme is an initiative designed to transform the country's agricultural landscape. It aims to enhance local agricultural production, minimise reliance on food imports, and create sustainable job opportunities, while also aiming to improve livestock production, foster industrial crop cultivation, and developing the oil palm sector to close the country’s consumption gap. Key features of the initiative include establishing farmers' service centers, promoting the development of grains and legumes, and introducing cutting-edge technologies, such as controlled environment farming and greenhouse cultivation.

The Minister outlined various initiatives to support institutional farming, including partnerships with national institutions and religious organisations to rejuvenate the poultry industry through a new 'farm to table project.' Opoku further announced plans to invest in agricultural infrastructure, which will significantly enhance food security, boost exports, and create jobs, ultimately contributing to Ghana's long-term economic growth.

In his address, Opoku underscored the vital role of a robust agricultural sector in national development. Despite Ghana's rich agricultural potential, the Minister recognised the obstacles that smallholder farmers face, including production inefficiencies, inadequate infrastructure, limited access to financing, and a lack of mechanisation. He also highlighted the problem of post-harvest losses stemming from insufficient storage and processing facilities, poor transportation networks, and weak market integration.

To combat these challenges, the Feed Ghana Programme will form part of Ghana's Agriculture for Economic Transformation Agenda (AETA), which is set to be launched by His Excellency John Dramani Mahama on 12 April 2025, at the Methodist School Park in Techiman, Bono East Region. The minister further announced plans to invest in agricultural infrastructure. 

The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) recently entered a collaboration aimed at reducing methane emissions from livestock

Backed by theBezos Earth Fund and theGlobal Methane Hub, IRLI's partnership with the new US$27.4mn global initiative will identify and scale climate-efficient livestock by providing ample support to research and breeding programmes across North America, South America, Europe, Africa, and Oceania. 

ILRI’s leadership in the Global Methane Genetics Initiative, coupled with its contribution to the Low Methane Forage project highlights its central role in delivering integrated, climate-smart livestock solutions for the Global South. These two complementary efforts have enabled ILRI to tackle enteric methane emissions from both the genetic and nutritional fronts—two of the most promising and scalable strategies for mitigating livestock emissions without compromising productivity.  

The genetics initiative enables African production systems to choose cattle breeds that naturally emit lower emissions, while the Low Methane Forage project identifies and deploys anti-methanogenic, high-yielding tropical forages suited for smallholder and pastoral systems. These projects in combination with each other demonstrate ILRI’s commitment to advancing science-based innovations that are practical, inclusive, and tailored to the realities of livestock keepers in Africa and beyond. By aligning research, capacity building, and deployment with national and regional needs, ILRI is helping to shape a sustainable future where livestock systems are both productive and climate resilient.

The initiative is also part of the Global Methane Genetics initiative that works by screening more than 100,000 animals, collecting methan emissions data and integrating findings into public and private breeding programmes. By making methane efficiency a standard part of livestock breeding, the initiative marks a turning point for climate-smart livestock development in Africa.

"By harnessing the power of genetics and data, we are equipping farmers with the tools to breed more productive, resilient, and lower-emission animals. It is a bold step towards aligning Africa’s livestock systems with global climate goals, while enhancing livelihoods and food security," said ILRI’s director general, Appolinaire Djikeng. "ILRI is proud to lead this effort in close partnership with national and international collaborators including Agriculture Research Council, South Africa, the Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (CIRAD), Burkina Faso and Universite d’Abomey-Calavi, Benin.”

In the long run, the approach will keep diets, infrastructure and productivity intact, while at the same time contributing to an overall 30% reduction in methane emissons in cattle over the next two decades. This also includes an annual reduction of 1-2%.

As Nigeria’s economy faces rising inflation, agro-investor and managing director of Cultivate Africa, Dr Dominic Joshua, has issued a call to action aimed at leveraging the cocoa value chain to revive the region’s economy 

According to Dr Joshua, Nigeria continues to export raw cocoa beans while forfeiting billions in potential revenue that could be gained from local processing and finished goods export. He envisions a transformation where at least 50% of cocoa production is processed locally, creating thousands of jobs, generating stable forex, and revitalising rural economies.

Given its vast and largely untapped economic potential, Nigeria’s cocoa value chain could act as a core pillar of Nigeria’s non-oil exports. Dr Joshua emphasised that developing agro-industrial clusters and ensuring access to credit for smallholder farmers would make this possible. 

Moreover, youth entrepreneurs have expressed a growing interest in agribusiness. However, access to mentorship, funding, and infrastructure remains limited. To address this, Dr Joshua has advocated for a public-private partnership model, wherein the government provides infrastructure and enabling environments, while private investors focus on innovation, scale, and export competitiveness. 

In a recent thought leadership piece, Dr Joshua outlined the following four policy actions that could unlock this transformation:

• Streamlining export regulations to eliminate bureaucratic inefficiencies.
• Creating agribusiness-specific funds offering low-interest loans.
• Providing technical training across the cocoa value chain.
• Launching awareness campaigns to promote agribusiness among youth.

“Agribusiness is not a fallback. It is Nigeria’s future,” Dr Joshua stated. “If the nation invests in what it grows and processes what it produces, it can transform cocoa from a forgotten commodity into a currency of sustainable prosperity.”

Researchers have created a functional sponge that is capable of efficiently soaking up certain pollutants from water and then releasing them on demand

Industrial manufacturing and agriculture, in particular, experience mineral and fertiliser loss due to runoff, leaving valuable non-renewable resources as pollutants in bodies of water. Those resources include heavy metals like zinc and copper and also phosphate. 

The innovation presents a reusable and low-cost solution for cleaning storm runoff while simultaneously recovering valuable metals like zinc and copper, as well as phosphate. Using surface iron oxide nanoparticles specialised for capturing specific contaminants, the sponge collects the minerals and then discharges them only when triggered by changes in pH. These findings were achieved by researchers at Northwestern University and published in the American Chemical Society's journal Environmental Science and Technology Water.

Doctoral student and first author on the paper, Kelly Matuszewski believes it is important to understand the interaction between these minerals and utilise them, rather than finding ways to discard them. Through her research she discovered that lowering water pH flushed out the captured copper and zinc from the sponge, while raising water pH loosened the phosphates.

In an attempt to commercialise the sponge-based technology, Vinayak Dravid, co-author and Northwestern professor of materials science and engineering has co-founded a startup with additional NSF support through the Small Business Innovation Research programme, which will further develop the material for real-life scenarios.

"The technology can be used as a universal sorbent or 'catch-all,' or it can be tailored to certain groups of contaminants like metals, plastics or nutrients," said Dravid. In their future research, the team plans to account for biofilms, clogging or water flow dynamics on the sponge's performance, while also testing the maximum mineral levels the sponge can absorb.