An alliance has been announced between the US Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) and the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (Agra) to focus on small-scale farmers.

The initiative combines the investments that MCC has made in many sub-Saharan African countries in agriculture and public infrastructure such as roads and irrigation to complement Agra's investments in providing the rural poor with seeds and fertilisers.

"The initial focus of the partnership will be on:

* Ghana, where a great and improved varieties of seeds will be made available to farmers
* Madagascar, where extremely poor rice yields will be the focus
* Mali, where the focus will be on irrigation and disease-resistant crops.

To date Agra has already invested $330m and MCC $1.7bn in African agricultural development. "