Frontier markets
Field notes and thoughts while striving to accelerate Ghana's agriculture development
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TEDTalk Kathryn Schulz: On being wrong
I wanted to highlight this great TedTalk by Kathryn Schulz. Her insight resonated when she shared how in theory we all understand and easily accept that human beings are fallible, that we all make mistakes...
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Project-conscious & Business-conscious
For the past two days I've been meeting with rice industry players around Kumasi, Ghana with Nash, a field business facilitator on the USAID ADVANCE agriculture market development project. Nash has...
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Briefing Paper - Strengthening Farmer-based Organizations
Farmer-based organisations (FBOs) have long been recognized as a means for farmers to gain access to the support they need to improve their livelihood and food security. Ghana’s agriculture sector policy...
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The end-game of market facilitation?
In a taxi-ride conversation about how market facilitation happens and business relationships form in Canada, my fellow colleagues Mark, Mike, Colleen and I laugh when our answer is "deals on the golf course". The logical extension is that we're seriously investing our time in the wrong way---we should be building 9-hole golf courses! But the conversation was part of a stream of thinking I have been doing these past few months. What is the end-game of market facilitation? How will business relationships be formed...
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The politics of Ghana's agriculture
Over the past 2 years of working in agriculture development in northern Ghana, I've realized first-hand that, wow, there's money in agric! There is so much potential, indeed, it is the inspiration for my blog title. And having spent this time working in Ghana's Ministry of Food and Agriculture, I've experienced first-hand how government policy can work for and against smallscale producers and agri-businesses. I arrived in Ghana just in time for the 2008 election fever and to see the current NDC government win by...
I'm passionate about innovative agriculture market development in emerging economies, and currently working in Ghana. Here are some field notes and questions about the many moving pieces to transform the agriculture market system in Ghana, and other developing economies.
