Women dominance in the agriculture sector has contributed significantly to the country’s food security, nutrition, economic growth and community well-being.
They also play critical and strategic roles in agribusiness value chains, helping shape and model the country’s economy, improving livelihoods and promoting sustainable agriculture.
Over the years, women in the Bono, Bono East and Ahafo regions have ventured into agriculture and agribusiness to improve their living standards.
Statistics from the Bono Regional Department of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) indicate that about 48 per cent of the estimated 139,827 farmers in the region are women.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), women could increase production by 20 to 30 per cent if they had the same access to productive resources as their male counterparts (FAO 2011).
Challenges
Notwithstanding these significant contributions of the female farmers, there are some challenges working against them, threatening their contributions to the country’s agricultural value chain.
They include the existence of gender-induced socio-cultural barriers, the increasing impact of climate change on livelihoods, and inadequate access to agroecology extension services delivery.
Others are lack of agro-processing factories, deplorable roads, heavy reliance on agrochemicals and hybrid seeds against the promotion of agroecological practices and lack of access to the market for organic products.
These barriers, especially climate change, have prevented some women from venturing into agriculture, limiting their production and productivity, and hindering their progress and full utilisation of their potential.
In that regard, some women farmers in the regions have adopted agroecological practices to sustain them in the agricultural industry.
Conference
At a recent smallholder women farmers conference organised by Smallholder Women Farmers Movement (SHWFM) at Abesim in the Bono Region, the Ahafo Regional President of the movement, Clementina Ayivour, said the agriculture sector and the current food systems in Ghana were fragile due to the over-dependence on external inputs from other countries
She said the effects of the increasing climate crisis is taking its toll on people living in poverty and endangering the livelihoods of smallholder farmers, mainly women farmers.
The SHWFM conference, supported by ActionAid Ghana, was organised on the theme: “Remobilising women farmers to promote agroecology as a sustainable approach to mitigate the impact of climate change.”
The movement is a group of smallholder women farmers and advocacy group championing the rights of women farmers in the regions.
Formed in 2017, the movement has a membership of over 500 in the region.
The conference seeks to remobilise women farmers to lead their advocacy actions and initiatives and discuss issues affecting farmers and share best practices on agroecology.
At the end of the conference, they issue a communique’ highlighting strategies to promote agroecology, issues affecting them and make recommendations to the government and policy makers to promote the rights of women farmers.
The communiqué outlined actions and commitment aimed at promoting the empowerment and well-being of smallholder women farmers.
Mrs Ayivour said they organised the conference to remobilise women farmers to lead their advocacy on issues affecting farmers and share best practices to promote agroecology.
Recommendations
On the recommendations, she urged the government to promote the empowerment and well-being of smallholder women farmers, considering the low knowledge on climate change among farmers and the public.
“We recommend that there should be deliberate efforts by the state agencies and development partners to increase the education on climate change and support communities to build their resilience.”
“This will build a collective effort by individuals, groups, communities and the government towards climate change mitigation,” she said.
Mrs Ayivour appealed to the government to ensure that its programmes and policies include the promotion of agroecological practices such as organic manure, organic weedicide, farmer-managed seed systems and marketing organic products.
She explained that the movement consisted of women farmers campaigning for sustainable and environmentally friendly agricultural practices by influencing government policies and programmes through engagement and advocacy work in the region.
Importation
A member of the Movement, Alberta Pomaa, called on the government to minimise the importation of agrochemicals that had negative impacts on the environment and human health.
“We strongly call for a policy that promotes agroecology instead of subsidising chemicals and fertilisers in national programmes,” she stated.
Mrs Pomaa said the government through the district assemblies should work towards adopting the Female Extension Volunteer (FEV) concept as a model to support farmers —particularly women—in gaining timely and adequate access to extension services.
She suggested to the government to provide the requisite technical and financial support to women farmers and play a key role in the identification, protection and preservation of indigenous seeds through community seed banks concept.
“Whilst we commend the government for the construction of warehouses, we recommend that the government also establish processing factories in districts to reduce post-harvest losses,” she said.
Mrs Pomaa urged the government to consider their recommendations and implement policies geared towards enhancing the livelihood of smallholder women farmers.
She also urged policy makers, development partners and other stakeholders to take note of their concerns and work with them to create an enabling environment that supports the growth and prosperity of women farmers in agriculture.
For his part, the Programme Officer of ActionAid Ghana, Yaw Osei Boateng, said ActionAid was an affiliate of ActionAid International, a global justice federation working to achieve social justice, gender equality and poverty eradication in over 45 countries.
He explained that ActionAid was using a Human Rights-Based Approach (HRBA) to achieve its objectives with women’s rights at the centre of its interventions.
