Faranaya is an aggregator that buys sorghum from smallholder farmers and sells it to Guinness Ghana. The demand for sorghum was constantly increasing, but the sorghum supply was not enough. One of the factors for this was the inadequate access to ploughing services.
In order to increase the farmers’ access to land preparation services and the quantity of sorghum products, faranaya and 2SCALE proposed as a solution - the use of local bullocks for ploughing. Since the cost of bullock ploughing is cheaper than the use of tractors, this could attract many women and the youth into sorghum production.
The bullock owners lived in the community, but they were not offering the services. Taking advantage of the opportunities in bullock services, 147 bullock owners have been trained on the use of bullocks for land preparation. This has increased the access to ploughing services, employment creation for the operators and more women and youth are getting involved in sorghum production.
Ajaratu, a bullock owner benefited from this training that allowed her to use her bullocks profitably. She says:
The commercial bullock ploughing initiative has generated impressive results since it was launched. More farmers are utilizing the service, with women being the highest beneficiaries. The service has been made even more accessible to women as the ploughing services is also available on credit. The cost of land preparation is offset after the women have harvested their sorghum and sold to Faranaya.
By 2023, the Faranaya and 2SCALE partnership seeks to involve 10,000 smallholder farmers of which 5,000 are women.
