Category
: ForestClient
: FFFStarts On
: November, 2021Ends On
: February, 2022Location
: Northern Region
Concept
“The aim of the project is to enable Maaltaaba women to apply a business lens to the selection and implementation of on-farm and off-farm innovations and ecosystem interventions adapting to climate change to ensure a sustainable income, wellbeing, and economic resilience of their household. The women are engaged in rain-fed crops production, vegetables and livestock production. Key off-farm income generation activities of the union include Shea nut picking and processing, charcoal production, petty trading, weaving and spinning, basketry and artisanship.
Challenges & Solutions
The Shea industry provides a viable opportunity to reduce poverty among rural women. However, women lack sound business skills in the industry leading to low income. Shea trees are also destroyed by bushfires, activities of charcoal burners and fuelwood pickers with no internal control mechanisms. The project will help address these challenges by building the capacity on thematic areas of 30 women as a trainer of trainers (ToT) or lead farmers and then, pass on acquired knowledge and skills to 100 colleague farmers in a step-down training. Insufficient clean water is another problem in the project area which has limited agricultural production of leafy vegetables, tree growing and watering of livestock. This project will improve access to clean water by building a mechanized borehole to promote crop farming, vegetable production, watering of animals and establishment of woodlot. The woodlot is aimed at providing women with alternative sustainable sources of firewood, alleviating poverty, reducing deforestation and land degradation, and creating awareness on combating desertification through tree planting. This part of the project also aims to provide practical demonstrations to local people that they can then replicate for sustainable fuelwood and a source of income, thereby reducing the need to rely on the scarce savannah woodlands. To ensure project sustainability, the project will liaise with personnel of the Ghana national fire service and train volunteer environmental management committee members to ensure adherence to district Assembly environmental byelaws to protect Shea trees and other natural resources.
