Women in food awards launched

The sixth edition of the Women in Food and Leadership Training Forum (WOFAGRIC) and Gold in the Soil awards has been launched in Accra.

The award, which is an initiative of the Agrihouse Foundation, seeks to honour excellence in agriculture. 

Launch 

Speaking at the launch, the Coordinator of the Ghana National Egg Secretariat, Dr Comfort Acheampong, who expressed excitement about the award scheme, underscored the critical importance of empowering women in agriculture and recognising their valuable contributions to the economy and society.

“Women play a pivotal role in agriculture, comprising almost half of the world’s farmers,” she said, adding that women encountered several challenges in the sector.

The award scheme, she said, would help address those challenges and provide a platform for women to showcase their talents, skills and innovations in agriculture. 

She pleaded with the government to bring back elective agriculture for the youth to understand the importance of agriculture for the country’s development. 

 Capacity 

The Executive Director of Agrihouse Foundation, Alberta Nana Akyaa Akosa, emphasised the need to ensure that the capacity of rural women farmers, agro-processors, livestock farmers, and, most importantly, persons with disabilities, is built.

Over the last six years, she said her foundation had empowered directly over 5,000 women, adding that it was something they were proud of. 

“Most importantly, some of them have been able to establish market linkages out of this platform,” she said.

The Managing Director of YARA, Theresa Randolph, said it was vital that stakeholders recognised the need to train more women in the sector to spur development.

“If we put together what also comes from women in agri-business enterprises, we can confidently say that this is over 50 per cent of our agriculture value chain and women play a bigger role in this actual development.

“For us at Yara, we have continually supported this initiative and we will continue to support women in agriculture since they are the backbone of the sector,” she said