The Shea Network Ghana (SNG), a leading shea business networking organisation in Ghana, has organised a learning exchange on agroforestry practices with other shea agroforestry practice programmes for women in the shea business.
The one-day event held over the weekend had 40 women leaders from eight different shea business cooperatives from four districts in the Northern, Upper East, Upper West and Savanna regions.
The participants visited the Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana’s Sub-station in Bole in the Savanna Region to learn and acquire skills on how best they could manage their shea farms and businesses.
It was organised by the Shea Network Ghana in collaboration with Development Frontiers.
The learning exchange was part of the five-year Women’s Economic Advancement for Collective Transformation Project (WEACT) project implemented by the SNG under the Innovations for Women’s Economic Empowerment in Ghana (IWEEG) Programme being sponsored by Global Affairs Canada (GAC) aimed at enhancing economic empowerment, well-being and inclusive economic growth for women in the Northern, Savanna, Upper East, Upper West, Western North and Western regions of Ghana.
The project is being supported by SEND Ghana, Friends of the Nation (FoN), Women in Law and Development in Africa (WiLDAF), TungTeiya Women’s Association, Shea Network, NORSAAC and Viamo.
The Women and Cooperative Development Officer at the Shea Network Ghana, Saani Sharif, in an interview, explained that the visitation was part of efforts by the SNG, to empower the women on how best they could manage their shea trees and seedlings.
He also said the excursion was to allow space for the women to interact with experts in the shea industry, ask the necessary questions that bothered on shea agroforestry practices and also learn how to improve their productivity.
“The visit is to allow our women who are leaders of various cooperatives to see and learn how shea trees are managed so that when they go back home, they will also teach their colleagues,” he said.
He indicated that under the WEACT project, partners shared responsibility for the implementation in their operation districts across the six selected regions
A plant Breeder at the Cocoa Research Institute’s Sub-Station in Bole and an expert in shea agroforestry management, Dr Edem Anyomi, in an interview, called for pragmatic measures to protect shea trees in Ghana.
Some of the women who spoke in an interview expressed gratitude to the Shea Network Ghana and the Development Frontiers for the exposure and promised to use the knowledge gained to benefit themselves and their colleagues.
“I am happy that we have come here to learn, it will help us to be able to manage our farms well.
FROM REPORTER, TAMALE
