The President of the Upper West Regional House of Chiefs, Kuoro Richard Babini Kanton has encouraged his fellow chiefs and heads of land owning families to support women to get long term access to and control of fertile litigation-free lands.
Kuoro Babini Kanton stated that as a traditional ruler he sees no reason why women should be denied access to land based on their gender.
He expressed the sentiments at an event to mark this years International Day of Rural Women in the Upper West Region at Wa.
Kuoro Babini Kanton who is also the Paramount Chief of Tumu commended ActionAid Ghana for its efforts in empowering and celebrating women.
He underscored the need for women to be given the requisite resources for them to contribute their quota to the development of their communities and the region at large.
The Upper West Regional Program Manager of ActionAid Ghana, George Dery observed that in Upper West, agriculture offers employment to over 70% of the working population adding that the Region equally has a comparative advantage in farming because of the availability of arable lands.
He touched on the significant role women play in agriculture, saying: It is an undisputed fact that rural women in Ghana constitute 70% of food crop producers with close to 80% of them also being food processors.
It has also been revealed that women are important actors in the agricultural value chain which begins from production, storage, processing, marketing and distribution.
Mr. Dery pointed out that ActionAid Ghana had over the years tried to over gender inequity in access to and control of land and other resources by among others, mobilizing small holder women farmers into district and regional movements and platforms to lead their own agenda in escalating their concerns to government.
Pognaa Leticia Tantuo on behalf of the Upper West Regional Small Holder Women Farmers Movement requested: “Support should be provided to the Department of Agriculture to train and provide foundation seed as well as technical extension services to the hardworking women farmers in the Upper West Region to become satisfied groundnut and cowpea seed growers that will supply seeds to women farmers without depending on external sources that are unreliable”.
The Regional Minister, Dr. Hafiz Bin Salih in a speech read for him by an Assistant Director from the RCC, Yakubu Ibrahim Mumuni, asked rural women engaged in charcoal burning to get alternative livelihood and also plant more tress as a way reducing environmental degradation.
Story by Emmanuel Mensah-Abludo
