Our Work

Improving Food Safety Systems Project

Approach

As a special program support project under USAID’s umbrella Farmer-to-Farmer initiative, this project was managed by a lean local team and leveraged U.S. volunteer expertise to deliver technical assistance. IESC relied on its robust registry of highly skilled volunteer experts and half century of experience fielding volunteers to catalyze enterprise and private sector growth worldwide.

Develop a traceability system

The project supports the Ministry of Food and Agriculture to establish traceability systems for fruits and vegetables to identify when and where food safety and quality problems are introduced—at growing, harvesting, processing, or packaging—and address them quickly.

Improve value chain food safety systems

IESC conducts value chain assessments and introduces systems to improve the ability of producers and other actors along the value chain to meet the sanitary and phytosanitary standards that the market demands.

Strengthen government food safety systems

The project coordinates the Ghanaian government, international donors, the private sector, and others working on sanitary and phytosanitary protections to take steps to improve the inspection, monitoring, and certification processes and systems.

Summary

This program improved access to markets for Ghana’s farmers by strengthening the systems that deliver safe, quality produce and food. Launched in the wake of an EU ban on Ghanaian agricultural exports, the program supported cooperation between the public and private sectors to strengthen the compliance system that ensures people, animals, and plants are free from diseases, pests, and other contaminants (sanitary and phytosanitary systems).

Results

2,400 farmers and exporters following good agricultural practices (GAP)
1,250 days of volunteer service
4,200 hectares of land using new production technology
52,000 total project beneficiaries

Program details

Funder: USAID Farmer-to-Farmer Program
Administrator: Volunteers for Economic Growth Alliance
Project duration: 2016 to 2018
Award: $2.8 million

Impact

Improving Economies for Stronger Communities (IESC)
2000 M Street NW
Suite 250
Washington, DC 20036
Tel: 202-589-2600
Email: iesc@iesc.org

Get Updates

Get the latest news from IESC, delivered straight to your inbox.