Indeed, women are the major contributors to Ghana’s food basket, yet building their capacities for development is way down below the belt as expected. In contributing a quota to the women’s development in the agriculture sector to upscale production, Agrihouse Foundation has launched the 3rd Women in Food and Agriculture Leadership Training Forum (WOFAGRIC) and God in the Soil Awards.
“I believe there is no telling the heights and achievement women can reach when the right environment is created for our flourishing, and I am therefore delighted that Agrihouse Foundation has projects such as Agri-women Market Place and the Women in Food and Agriculture Leadership Training Forum, both interventional projects highlighting the work of women farmers and building their capacities while creating market accessibility, training and mentoring opportunities for them”, the Chairwoman of the event, Nana Adwoa Awindoh said.
Women farmers in particular face a lot of challenges, and this global pandemic has only intensified these concerns, in the areas of transportation, innovative marketing approaches, education, lack of skills training to enable self-reliance, and limited access to the market.
The chairperson enumerated that this is why Agrihouse Foundation for taken up the good fight and the intentional position to ensure that these challenges that the women farmers go through in the course of contributing to the national food baskets are mitigated. At this juncture, she added, it is important to note that smallholder farmers in Ghana, the majority of whom are women generate 80% of total agricultural production in the country. Thus, no support towards the resilience and sustainability of Ghanaian Agri-women is too small.
She thanked all the sponsors and the supporting partners for their immense contribution to the development of women in the agricultural sector and called for more assistance from the stakeholders both at the sector and other private partners to rally behind such thoughtful initiative to help the women thrive at this difficult times.
Speaking on behalf of the Chairman of the National Farmers and Fishermen Award Winners Association of Ghana (NFFAWAG), Dennis K. Addo noted that the effect of Covid-19 was very rife and all other countries closed their doors to us, but the gallant farmers who are mostly women demonstrated why are the backbone of Ghana’s economy.
“Our women worked untiringly to feed citizens with fruits and vegetables for stronger immune system against infections and even feeding front line health workers with energy and good health in their work”, he emphasized.
As an organizing partner, he said this year’s WOFAGRIC 21 would seek to showcase the efforts of the women agripreneurs, celebrate their achievements and contributions to the economic growth of their communities and countries, promote networking among women achievers in agribusiness and propel them to do more collectively, and recognize and reward pioneers and trailblazers; the women who push the boundaries along the agricultural value chain.
He commended the positive effect of the programme for adding 25% of women participants who were not into agriculture, and have now ventured into agribusiness after receiving the soft skills training during the previous edition of the programme.
The theme for this year’s event “Surviving, Thriving and Making Waves beyond the Pandemic” could not be more appropriate in view of the adverse effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the agricultural value chains, particularly for women farmers, the Special Guest Speaker of the programme, Stephanie Brunet, Deputy Director of Operations, Canadian High Commission said.
According to her, since 2017, Canada has been providing support to the Government of Ghana to improve its agriculture sector through an initiative called Modernizing Agriculture in Ghana (MAG) and recognizes that the sector continues to hold great potential for reducing poverty and inequality in the country. “That is why we are providing 125 million Canadian dollars of assistance directly to the Government of Ghana to help modernize the sector”, she explained.
She expounded the big focus of the MAG project is to understand the specific needs of women farmers and to ensure that both female and male farmers are receiving the appropriate extension services to help them improve both their yields and their incomes.
“This is in line with Canada’s Feminist International Assistance Policy and the UN Sustainable Development Goal 5 on Gender Equality and through our partnerships with the Government of Ghana and organizations like the Agrihouse Foundation, we are witnessing increased empowerment and self-reliance among women in the agricultural sector. Women farmers are demonstrating higher levels of financial autonomy. As a result, they are now able to buy land, add rooms to their homes, purchase agro-processing machines, expand their agro-processing activities, and pay school fees for their children”, she contentedly said.
She believes that women are critical to the sustainability of Ghana’s agriculture and that successful women farmers deserved to be recognized for their achievements and contributions to the nation. She thanked the supporting partners and Agrihouse Foundation and assured their support to this year’s event.
The Regional Director of Agriculture, Mr. Francis Ennor delivering his remarks to welcome this year’s WOFAGRIC and Gold in the Soil which would be held at the Upper East Region said he has no shadow of doubt about the potential impact of the project on the livelihoods of women farmers in my region after familiarized himself with the concept note of the project.
Sharing little occupational history about the region, Mr. Ennor said agriculture remains the main source of livelihood for the majority of the people in the Upper East Region of Ghana, and of the total estimated farmer population of 928,090 in the Region, 49% are women. These women (mostly smallholders) are variously involved in mainstream agricultural production and agribusiness-related activities for sustenance.
“The prevailing agricultural production environment (attributable to the existence of well-organized and coordinated women groups and value chain actors) in the region, thus, FBOs with the membership of 13,106 positions it well to host the WOFAGRIC project. The Upper East region is thus more than prepared for the project and would therefore accord it all the necessary technical support it desires to succeed”, he mentioned.
He thanked Agrihouse Foundation and the sponsors of the great initiative and also for making Upper East the Host region for this year’s event.
The Executive Director of Agrihouse Foundation, Alberta Nana Akyaa Akosa thanked the supporting partners and the sponsors for their continuous support and called for more corporative support towards the activities and projects. “We believe we are filling a great gap in our national efforts, in our agricultural sector”, she eulogized.
Giving a success story of the Women in Food and Agriculture Leadership Training Forum (WOFAGRIC) and God in the Soil Awards over the years, Alberta announced that in 2019, almost a quarter of the nominees for the Gold in the Soil Awards made entries into the National Best Farmers Award Scheme at district, regional and national levels, 7 of them won laurels at the district and regional levels whilst 2 of them picked up awards at the National awards.
“Guidance provided by the Netherlands embassy and the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) equipped some of the women farmers on how to go about documentations to export their produce. This helped about 13 women to start the process to go into exportation. In 2020, at the end of the tw0-day event, 25 % of women who were not into agribusiness had decided to start up their own agri-projects, as a result of the competence-based training and soft skills they had acquired”, she added.
The 3rd Women in Food and Agriculture Leadership Training Forum (WOFAGRIC) and God in the Soil Awards was launched at OAK Plaza, Accra with the theme “Surviving, Thriving and Making Waves beyond the Pandemic”. The WOFAGRIC event would be held in Upper East Region in July.
