Tackle the bias in agric sector – SEND-Ghana

SEND-Ghana, a policy research and social enterprise advocacy group, has called on government to implement agricultural programmes with a gender eye to curb the inherent inequalities in the smallholder agricultural sector.

Programme Officer of the organisation, Daniel Adotey Akai, who spoke to the B&FT on the sidelines of a dialogue session for actors and policymakers in the sector, said there is a striking bias against women smallholder farmers even though they take up the vast majority of the country’s agricultural space and that government must act to avert the trend.

“There are some inherent inequalities in the agricultural sector that government must tackle in the interest of food security; we currently have a situation where men farmers tend to enjoy the various government interventions and supports like fertiliser subsidies and access to extension services at the expense of their women counterparts.

“This is a worrisome trend considering the fact that women make up about 90 percent of the smallholder farming space; they are key actors in the country’s agricultural sector and they put more food on the table than men.

“Government must begin to implement programmes with a gender eye and roll out strategic policies targeted at women smallholder farmers. We must address the challenges facing our women farmers who can be more productive when given the requisite support,” he said.

The one-day workshop was to provide the platform for information sharing between actors and policymakers in the agricultural sector and to highlight some challenges that women smallholder farmers are faced with, and also get get duty bearers to make key and strategic commitments that will go to improve the productivity of smallholder farmers in the country.

SEND-Ghana also proposed the establishment of a dedicated fund that will provide direct credit to women smallholder farmers who cannot access formal financial assistance to support the farming activities.

“We must support women in smallholder agribusiness; we have to give them the needed support to grow and be empowered to make the best from their farming activities. Women constitute half of the country’s agricultural labour force, producing about 70 percent of the national food stock.

“There is the need for a women enterprise fund to provide direct credit to women farmers who cannot access formal financial assistance to support their farming activities, and to enable them overcome some of the challenges that makes them uncompetitive,” Mr. Akai said.