Mamadou Adama Diallo

Malangupdatenews99 – Promoting Agribusiness in Guinea.

Introduction Mining is a vast industry in the economy of Guinea, even though the country has a lot of agricultural potential. The main source of livelihood for a good percentage of the population, especially in the rural areas, is agriculture, but it only forms a relatively low percentage of the GDP and is also characterized by low productivity, poor value chains, and insufficient government investment. Such structural attributes imply that agribusiness has to be encouraged not only to diversify the economy beyond mining but also to alleviate poverty, enhance nutrition, and several other Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This discussion is an elaboration of the difficulties in undertaking agriculture in Guinea, the possible advantages of agribusiness development, and a practical solution based on technology, policy, and inclusive value-chain development. (The uploaded brief on technology and post-harvest solutions by a user in the user section was guided by the tone and practical framing, which could be thought of as the tone.

Discussion Difficulties of practicing agriculture in Guinea.

There is chronic under-investment in agriculture in Guinea, and poor institutionalization of agriculture. Historically, the public investment in the agricultural sector has been low in comparison with the requirement; the official intentions of increasing shares in the agricultural budgets have a questionable record of turning into the form of permanent funding or efficient provision of services to farmers. This constrains extension services, rural infrastructure (roads, storage, irrigation), and subsidies or credit facilities that agribusinesses require to expand. The outcome is continuously low yields, as well as a low participation of the smallholders in the higher-value markets.
2. Asymmetry of information and market failure.
Farmers and small agribusiness entrepreneurs usually do not have access to good market information (prices, demand trends), agronomic knowledge (improved seeds, crop rotations), and do not get access to timely weather or pest alerts. The margin benefits are often accrued by middlemen since farmers are unable to sell at the right time or to more diverse markets. The lack of information lowers bargaining power and precludes the ability of farmers to upgrade quality, and discourages them from investing in processing or storage that can add value.

3. Losses after harvest and ineffective processing facilities.

Poor incomes and food availability are eroded by high post-harvest losses, which are brought about by poor storage, poor handling, and access to value-adding processing. Horticultural products such as vegetables are particularly susceptible to the Guinea climate; since the area has no cheap cold storage, drying, or processing plants, farmers have no choice but to sell at low prices or have produce go to waste. These are technical limitations that render the agribusiness ventures more risky and less lucrative.

4. Adopting Technology to solve…
In Guinea, we have a large agriculture production including watermelon, pineapple, mango, papaya, guava, avocado, banana etc……..
but due to the lac of adequate processing facilities, much of this produce spoils, leading to significant post harvest losses
Poverty in the rural areas, low productivity, and climate susceptibility.
The rural population constitutes a significant portion of the population and engages in subsistence farming, which is rain-fed. There are high rates of rural poverty compared to urban ones, and the smallholders are not able to absorb the shocks (droughts, floods, pests) due to the small size. Climate variability also implies that production can no longer be predicted, and it will not encourage investment in more valuable crops or processing.

5. Marginalization among youth and gender.

Women and the youth are the key players in the agricultural production, yet they often do not have secure land rights, access to finance, training as well or market networks. When such groups are left out of the agribusiness opportunities, equity and general productivity of the sector are compromised.
Agribusiness could have potential benefits.
Sustainable development and environmental friendliness.
Properly developed agribusiness can support sustainable practices-agroecology, better land management, less waste, climate-smart farming, and developing several SDGs (zero hunger, decent work, climate action, life on land). Agribusiness can eliminate waste and enhance the resource efficiency of production by adding value processing and improving post-harvest management.
Adoption of Technology to…
Creation of jobs and reduction of poverty.

Agribusiness (processing, logistics, input supply, retail) generates employment in the rural and peri-urban regions. Diversified value chains absorb the labor seasonality in the agricultural sector, providing more consistent revenues and decreasing underemployment in the young population. Since Guinea has a large rural population, agribusiness scaling can provide an important path to inclusive growth.
Better nutrition and food security.
Agribusiness enhances the local food systems and nutrition outcomes by stabilizing supplies, adding processing (increasing shelf life) and improving distribution. Additional products (enriched flours, tinned vegetables) can enhance the diets and their year-round availability.
Adopting Technology to deal with…
Living sustainably and being resilient.
Way forward: Practical interventions:
Increase and aim at increasing public expenditure on extension, rural roads, irrigation, and cold-chain infrastructure; make sure that allocations are being converted into local delivery of service and not central budgets only.
Increased access to the market, increased resistance to market shocks, more resilient value chains, and more efficient risk-management (storage, insurance, climate-smart practices) result in more resilient livelihoods, which translates to the fact that households will not be forced back into abject poverty.
Install suitable technologies: install low-cost cold storage, solar drying, small-scale processing (juices, jam, drying), and packaging systems in order to reduce post-harvest losses. The local cases indicate that the technologies promptly increase incomes and minimize waste.
Embracing Technology to deal with…
Digital market data and e-markets: increase mobile applications and e-market sites that provide signals of prices, aggregation, and direct buyer contact so as to decrease information asymmetry and circumvent exploitative intermediaries.
The adoption of Technology to solve…
Inclusive finance and government business partnership: create blended-finance windows, guarantee facilities, and contract farming programs that tie the smallholders to processors and exporters in a way that protects the rights of farmers.
Capacity building and gender sensitive program: invest in technical training, cooperative development, and women and youth target programs so that there is adoption and sharing of benefits equally.
Climate-smart practices and insurance: encourage drought-resistant varieties, soil conservation, and index insurance of weather to lower negative risk for agribusiness investors. (Ria)