Pay maximum attention to our activities – Smallholder women farmers tell government
Smallholder Women Farmers Movement of Bono and Ahafo regions has appealed to the government to pay maximum attention to smallholder women farmers in the country to enable them to improve productivity and alleviate poverty while promoting food security.
According to them, smallholder women farmers have the potential to improve productivity if credit facilities, mechanisation services and farm inputs are readily available to them.
Addressing journalists in Sunyani, the Bono regional capital, Chairperson of the Smallholder Women Farmers Movement in the Bono and Ahafo regions, Grace Afrah, stressed, “Our smallholder women farmers have the proven skills to use farm inputs and other resources to increase productivity if given the needed attention”.
“We, the Smallholder Women Farmers Movement in the Bono and Ahafo regions, are urging the government to support smallholder women farmers to help increase their production to create a robust agriculture sector in the country,”Mrs Afrah reiterated.
She appealed to the government to be committed to projecting, empowering women in agriculture, and building their capacity.
Mrs Afrah decried the high cost of ploughing and farm inputs, such as fertiliser, saying they deter women farmers from commercial farming.
She underscored the need for the government to generate a database of smallholder women farmers in the country to factor them into policies and planning.
She encouraged other smallholder women farmers and generally women farmers to form agricultural cooperatives.
According to Mrs Afrah, this will play an important role in supporting smallholder women producers and farmers.
She added, “Agricultural cooperative institutions allow farmers to negotiate more effectively with the buyers and have greater access to better networks and new skills through capacity building.”
She urged financial institutions in the country to support smallholder women farmers with flexible credit facilities to purchase improved seeds, fertiliser, agricultural technology, processing equipment and other essential farming resources.
She urged all and sundry to rally behind smallholder women farmers in Ghana to ensure they become more successful in the agriculture space.
Abena Yeboah is a smallholder farmer in the Tain District of the Bono region.
She said, “Although smallholder women farmers in Ghana cultivate crops for both household sustenance and commercial purposes, we are often unnoticed during the allocation of agricultural resources.”
She pleaded with the government to supply subsidies and farm inputs like fertilisers and pesticides to women farmers.
“We demand a national programme on standard measurement for farm produce to reduce exploitation of smallholder women farmers from middle buyers,” Madam Yeboah indicated.