A capacity building workshop has been held for 20 national best women farmer awardees selected from all over the country, in Koforidua, to upgrade their activities in the agricultural value chain.
The training was jointly hosted by Feed the Future (FtF) Policy link activity, which is a five- year project supported by the USAID and the Ministry of Food and Agriculture with support from the FtF Mobilizing Finance in Agriculture (MFA) and Absa bank Ghana, in fulfilment of the award packages presented to the women during the 2022 farmers day awards.
In line with the theme for last year’s farmers day celebration, “Accelerating Agriculture Development through Value Addition” and based on assessment conducted early on, to ascertain the capacity needs of the women, the training focused on developing their businesses through access to credit as well as study tour of well-established farms to learn best practices.
Mr Yunus Abdulai, Country Lead of Policy Link said women were very important in their operation and the initiative was to contribute to national effort to improve women’s participation in the agriculture value chain.
He said the training was tailored to suit their activities in agriculture with the aim of enhancing their understanding in managing their activities as business to be able to move on to higher levels.
Mr Yaw Addo Frimpong, a Deputy Minister of Agriculture in a speech read on his behalf noted that since the inception of the national farmers day, best women farmer awardees had increased at all levels, however, only one woman had emerged the overall best farmer.
“Since the inception of the national farmers day, it took 20 years for a woman to emerged as the best national farmer in 2004, by 2024 it will be another two decades and I hope that with this capacity building for our women farmers, we will break that feat once again by having a woman as the national best farmer.”
Madam Naa Adjeley, 2022 National Best Female Farmer, described the training as very enlightening adding that, “it has opened our eyes to a lot of things which we ignored but very important in our farming activities,” and expressed gratitude to the organizers for the treat and exposure given them.
Madam Ernestina Osei Tutu, 2022 Eastern Regional Best Female Farmer also praised the organizers for the training, adding that not only would it add value to their farming activities, but their personal lives as well.
The women were presented with certificates showing that they had successfully completed a training course in business and financial management as well as leadership.
