Taffiasi is a village in the Sissala East Municipality, northern Ghana. In this village, agriculture plays an important role in the livelihoods of farmers. Smallholder farmers form a major part of the agricultural system, with women playing a substantial role. However, despite their significant role in agriculture, there are a number of obstacles these women face. These include, inadequate access to credit facilities, quality farm inputs, and lack of timely access to tractor services.
For the women in Taffiasi, access to tractor services is the biggest hurdle. The challenge is more compounded if they are unable to provide ready cash to access the service. Ms. Sumani Barikisu, a mother of six has been farming for over 20 years. For her, this is a livelihood and the only means she knows to provide for the needs of her family. She farms maize and groundnuts on her three-acre piece of land. She narrates:
I farm maize on two acres and groundnuts on one acre. I feel that there are challenges I face due to the fact that I am a female farmer, with a small piece of land. For instance, tractor owners are not willing to plow and thresh my farm on time. As smallholder women farmers, we are less prioritized because the services are scarce and tractor owners prefer to plow and thresh bigger farms which are most often owned by men. They only agree to provide tractor services to smaller farms after they have provided the services to men who own bigger farms. Such challenges hinder us from achieving maximum production.
Plowing late has an implication on the entire production process. All farm activities are delayed, and this often leads to less or low-quality yield. For tractor owners, the hesitation to plow on smaller farms is backed by the fact that most farmers want to access the service on credit and pay with farm produce during harvesting.
Ms. Barikisu shares her experience:
Access to credit is one of the difficult challenges we female farmers go through. It is difficult to access credit from formal financial institutions. Also, tractor service providers are not willing to offer services on credit. For instance, last year, I contacted a tractor service provider to plow my two-acre maize farm on credit, on condition that I would repay with some of my maize produce during harvesting. He declined, saying the size of my farm is small and in case I get poor yields I will not fully pay up. We face a similar challenge with input suppliers, who hesitate to provide us with inputs on credit.
