Our Experience

Ghana Arzakinmu “Our Wealth�? Project

Project Description
The two-year, $800,000 Arzakinmu project resulted in significantly increased incomes for smallholder farmers and community grain aggregators in Ghana. Arzakinmu, which means “our wealth�? in the Hausa language, was funded by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). By adopting improved post-harvest handling practices and accessing improved community-level storage infrastructure, farmers were able to increase their income from selling maize by 28 percent.

Project Approach
The Arzakinmu project provided direct upgrading support to community-level aggregators to facilitate construction and rehabilitation of warehouses to meet improved warehouse quality and volume requirements. The Arzakinmu team worked with the Ghana Grains Council and the to promote market linkages between stakeholders in the warehouse aggregation and receipts system. The team also trained smallholder farmers on improved post-harvest handling and aggregation practices to increase the quality and quantity of grain that can be stored. This training provided farmers with the knowledge and incentives to more fully utilize the grain warehouse system and invest in higher-quality inputs. 

Impact and Accomplishments
The Arzakinmu project leveraged over 20 percent of the total contract value in external funding to overcome logistical and budget constraints to meet contractual deliverables.

The project trained more than 12,000 smallholder farmers—about one-third of them women—in improved post-harvest handling and aggregation practices to improve grain quality. The program also trained and certified 35 warehouse operators in an intensive training series to ensure successful long-term warehouse operation.

The Arzakinmu team worked closely with the Ghana Grain Council to develop comprehensive community-level warehouse standards that have been submitted to Ghana’s Ministry of Trade and Industry for formal ratification. Using these standards, the Arzakinmu project built, rehabilitated and equipped 18 community-level warehouses through a $230,000 grant program. The warehouses were turned over to private sector aggregators to manage their operation after the project closed in December 2012.

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