Women farmers have been encouraged to adopt innovative technology to improve their farming activities for high yield and wider market.
The Programme Head Coordinator of the European Union Ghana Agriculture Programme (EUGAP), Mr Abu Huudu, gave the encouragement on Wednesday at an event to mark the International Women’s Day (IWD) with women along the agricultural value chain in Wa in the Upper West Region.
He lamented that the number of women who were exploiting innovation and technology within the sector was not encouraging, contributing to the already existing challenges faced by women.
“However, if women are exposed to technologies for farming and digital marketing, they will be able to reach a wider market with their agricultural produce,” he said.
Speaking on the theme: ‘DigitALL: innovation and technology for gender equality,’ Mr Huudu said the EU-GAP was committed to supporting women’s empowerment and gender equality in agriculture through interventions and capacity building on digital technology and innovation.
“ Women are facing growing inequalities in digital skills and access to technology, the critical role of women in agriculture and the need to bridge the digital gender divide is important to our women; let’s break the bias and work together to achieve gender equality, lets stand up and be counted, embrace digital tools, technology and innovation,” he charged.
Mr Huudu said the stereotype of women as only fit for domestic duties was long gone and today women were making great strides in every aspect of life.
“We must support our females to embrace and pursue higher education, resist abuse and as a matter of essence, expose them to technology and digital tools by constantly seeking opportunities to acquire new knowledge because these are some of the strategies to achieving the gender parity we so yearn for,” he said.
He said the EUGAP was committed to leveraging technology and innovation and to promoting gender equality and empower women in agriculture by bringing together women farmers, entrepreneurs, and development partners to share experiences and chart a way forward for a more inclusive and innovative agricultural sector in Ghana.
The above, he said included quality standards and certifications such as organic and green label standards which helped women farmers’ receive fair price for their produce and also access higher value markets.
Ms Portia Gban who has been in commercial farming and out grower system, sharing her experience, said there was the need to educate and conscientise women to know they were enough and capable to do what their male counterparts were doing and even more.
She said empowering female farmers in communities would lead to sustainable agriculture production and development in the region.
The event was organised by the Resilience Against Climate Change (REACH) and the Market Oriented Agriculture Programme in North West Ghana (MOAP-NW) which are co-funded by the European Union and the German Development Co-operation.
FROM RAFIA ABDUL RAZAK, WA
