ActionAid Ghana and its development partners have organized Smallholder Women Farmers Conferecne in Bolgatanga, the capital of the Upper East Region.
The conference forms part of activities to commemorate the United Nation’s International Day of Rural Women.
The Day which is celebrated on 15th October every year is set aside to recognize rural women’s role in supporting their communities.
The conference which is on the theme “Enhancing Market Access for rural women and local producers lets end gender-based violence now” brought together Smallholder Women Farmers groups in the Volta, Bono-Ahafo, Northern, Upper West and Upper East Regions.
The conference is aimed at promoting climate resilient agriculture, women’s market access and economic empowerment.
Despite the range of legal provisions in Ghana emphasizing equality of all persons before the law, there are still significant pieces of evidence to suggest that the rights of vulnerable groups including women are not fully protected when it comes to access and use of land as a productive asset.
For instance, article 17 and 18 of the 1992 Constitution, the Intestate Succession Law, 1985, Head of Family Accountability Law, 1985, Customary Marriage and Divorce Law, 1985 were all supposed to ensure the equality of all persons before the law and the protection of the rights of citizens to property, these provisions do not reflect in rural women’s access and control of land.
A range of economic, social and cultural factors have been identified to have stood in the way of the law.
Thus inhibiting women’s access and control over land in their environment. The conference took a critical look at the role culture plays in depriving rural women of their land rights.
It the conference, it was revealed that in the three regions of Ghana, the agricultural system is predominantly rainfed and largely composed of smallholder women farmers who remain vulnerable to climate change and variability shocks.
Research highlights that many smallholder women farmers have either limited or no access to basic agricultural tools, transport, and rural energy.
Speaker after speaker noted that the issues confronting smallholder women farmers raises the question of whether the future livelihood scenarios for such farmers will consist of barely surviving or “hanging in”; or whether such farmers can “step up” to adapt better to future climate constraints; or whether more of these farmers will “step out” of agriculture.
They argued that for smallholder women farmers to become more climate change resilient, more serious attention to gender analysis is needed to address their constraints in accessing basic agricultural technologies, combined with participatory approaches to develop and adapt CSA tools and technologies to their needs in future climates and agro-ecologies.
The Programs Coordinator of ActionAid Ghana’s Promoting Opportunities for Women Empowerment and Rights, Power, initiative, Azumi Mesuna, is aimed at addressing the challenges facing smallholder women farmers in the country.
She said ActionAid Ghana works with people living in poverty and the excluded, especially women, girls and young people, towards a vision of a just, equitable and sustainable world in which every person enjoys the right to a life of dignity, freedom from poverty and all forms of oppression.
Ms. Mesuna spoke about their expectations after the conference.
The Programs Officer at ActionAid Ghana, Juliet Adams, said ActionAid Ghana works with over one thousand smallholder women farms and some of the smallholder women farmers in their operational areas did not benefit from the governments agricultural revolutionary program dubbed “Planting for Food and Jobs”.
The smallholder women farmers conference brought together women groups in the Volta, Brong Ahafo, Northern, Upper West and Upper East Regions.
Story by GBC’s Samuel Ayammah
