In a moment that captures a decade of impact, leadership, and innovation, Yara Ghana Limited has been honoured with the prestigious Agribusiness of the Decade award at the Millennium Excellence Awards, Africa’s most prestigious awards ceremony for recognizing and supporting achievements in sustainable development, held under the royal patronage of His Majesty Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, Asantehene.
This monumental recognition is a tribute to Yara Ghana’s unwavering commitment to transforming the agricultural landscape of Ghana. Over the past decade, the company has championed excellence in crop nutrition solutions, market development, cutting-edge research, farmer empowerment, and sustainable agricultural practices all of which have directly contributed to national food security and the socio-economic development of farming communities.
Since its establishment in 2007, Yara Ghana Limited has grown to become a leading crop nutrition solutions company with a mission to responsibly feed the world and protect the planet, and a vision of building a collaborative society, a world without hunger and a planet respected. To meet these commitments, Yara Ghana works closely with partners throughout the whole food value chain to develop more climate-friendly crop nutrition solutions. In addition, the company is committed to working towards sustainable mineral fertilizer production providing farmers with critical knowledge and support thereby contributing to food security and nutrition for all.
In the year 2022, following the start of the Russia-Ukraine war, and recognizing the impact to food security as a result of unavailability of affordable fertilizer, Yara International ASA committed and donated USD20 million worth of fertilizers, equivalent to 18,000 metric tons i.e. 360,000 bags of high-quality premium YaraMila Actyva fertilizer to Ghana under the initiative “Yara Grow Ghana” through Yara Ghana Limited. This donation benefited over 100,000 smallholder farmers, by reducing farmers’ input cost per acre by 33.3%, improved livelihoods, and brought about market systems development approach for productive smallholder farmers to build resilience and sustainability. This contributed to national food production. The Initiative did not only help avert food insecurity across Ghana but also served as a catalyst for a larger continent-wide commitment to increase food system resilience, grow food security, and prevent hunger for 60 million people in Africa.
The Initiative created jobs for over 500 youth and provided vital agronomic knowledge to boost productivity and support farmers effectively. Overall, the Grow Ghana Initiative has been a success story, contributing to agricultural sustainability and prosperity in Ghana, the initiative also has led to increased staple crop productivity, resilient farming systems, and economic impact within the country.
Speaking after receiving the award, Madam Theresa Randolph, Country Manager of Yara Ghana, thanked the organizers for the recognition stating.
‘We are humbled and honoured to be named Agribusiness of the Decade. This award is not just for Yara Ghana it belongs to the hardworking farmers who rise every morning to grow the food that feeds our nation. This award goes to the team, our partners, and every individual who believes that agriculture can be a force for economic development’.
At Yara, we firmly believe that the future of agriculture in Ghana lies in building a system where knowledge, technology, and resources are readily accessible to farmers at every level. And for us to achieve the Yara Ambition of “Growing a Nature-Positive Food Future” through environmentally sustainable food production systems, we need to extend knowledge transfer of better ways of farming to maximize production and profitability, with less impact on the environment, natural resources, and innovative ways of dealings with climate change.
As Ghana and the African continent move toward greater agricultural sustainability, Yara Ghana stands as a beacon of what agribusiness leadership should look like: visionary, responsible, and relentlessly dedicated to feeding the future.
