A new dashboard, known as the “Visualising Insights on Fertilizer for African Agriculture,” has been created for Ghana to serve as an information generation tool to help enrich decision-making among stakeholders in the fertilizer industry.
The dashboard, to be launched on September 22, in Accra, is also expected to assist industry actors to respond appropriately to changes in the fertilizer market, while ensuring that sufficient and appropriate fertilizers reach Ghanaian farmers at the right time.
Under a public and private sector initiative, and with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the dashboard has been developed by the Development Gateway (DG), an international non-profit organisation that create innovative information management and data visualisation technology for countries.
It was developed in partnership with the AfricaFertilizer.org (AFO), a premier source for fertilizer statistics and information in Africa, of the International Fertilizer Development Centre (IFDC).
Outdooring the dashboard to the media in Accra on Friday, Mr Wekem Raymond Avatim, Ghana Country Lead, Gateway Development, said the dashboard was also a product of a collaborative effort with key partners from both public and private sectors that sought to address a number of challenges in the sector.
He said the tool would specifically fill key fertilizer information gaps; provide data to help policy and investment decisions; as well as make up-to-date and comprehensive fertilizer data available to meet the needs of stakeholders.
Mr Avatim said, so far, the dashboard had been introduced in Kenya and Ghana within the sub-region due to the availability of data in the two countries, adding that Mali would be the third country to receive it.
The key beneficiaries, he explained, would be farmers, “who work to ensure agriculture production and productivity.”
Mr Phred Gyasi, a Website and Fertilizer Statistics Specialist with the International Fertilizer Development Centre, said the dashboard would serve as a critical tool to inform stakeholders on prices of fertilizers and the availability on markets.
He said, for instance, the price of fertilizer had increased on the international market for most part of 2021 due to the COVID-19, which made many producing companies to halt production, creating shortages.
Mr Gyasi said the dashboard would be able to give accurate monthly information on those happenings within the Centre to enable players to be properly informed, especially at the policy level.
The launch would be attended by major stakeholders, including officials from the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, COCOBOD, AGRA, USAID, other development partners, as well as fertilizer producing companies.