Apeeliga Joseph Asekulga

Joseph Apeeliga is an agribusiness expert with over 11 years of experience in private sector development. Over the past 5 years, Joseph has been implementing the ‘Making markets work for the poor’ (M4P) model - a market systems development approach, in rice, maize, sorghum, soybean, groundnuts and vegetable markets across Northern Ghana resulting in the following achievements: 17 changes in the informal market rules space, 12 instances of systemic changes expressed by market actors, 71% increase in agribusiness firm investment in smallholder farmers and 64% increase in smallholder income. Working as a regional manager for ACDEP where he managed a project team of 21 staff, Joseph achieved the following: grew 27 nucleus farmers to become aggregation businesses through series of mentoring, training and linkage support; facilitated the formation and functioning of District Value Chain committees (DVCCs) to improve coordination of inputs and services delivery; coordinated the formation and strengthening of 315 Farmer-Based Organizations (FBOs). While with TechnoServe, Joseph promoted smallholder farmer wider adoption of improved varieties of maize, soya, sorghum, and cowpea preferred by output markets; introduced community-based warehouse receipt scheme in partnership with rural and community banks.