Volunteer Stephen Gary Bullen’s recent return to Africa set the stage for a transformative success story–a testimony to the power of strategic knowledge sharing and capacity building in transforming the agricultural sector. His journey took him to the heart of Ghana’s agrarian domain, a sector that serves as the country’s economic powerhouse, accounting for 54% of its GDP and over 40% of its export earnings.

One of the country’s significant agricultural challenges is post-harvest losses, which result in an annual loss of at least 30% of farm produce. A solution to this issue is the potential of agro-processing to minimize these losses and meet the escalating demand for processed foods, particularly among middle to high-income urban dwellers. Bullen’s encounter with Hope Rural Investment (HRI), a group of ambitious smallholder farmers, offers hope within this context.

Determined to mitigate these post-harvest losses and boost its market share, Hope Rural Investment sought to strengthen its market strategy and business skills, enabling them to deliver high-quality local raw materials and introduce its products to new markets. Their eagerness to learn and adapt led to a six-day comprehensive workshop organized by the Department of Agriculture – Bechem, Tano South Municipal, and Modernizing Agriculture in Ghana. The workshop’s mission was to empower these farmers with strategic marketing and business negotiation skills and help them penetrate new markets and expand their market share.

This intensive workshop, which saw the participation of thirty dedicated Hope Rural Investment members, centered around developing and implementing an effective marketing strategy. Despite the workshop’s short duration, the participants took full advantage of the opportunity, absorbing invaluable insights on marketing strategy development. The organizers offered much-needed materials, outlines, and guidance to further their ongoing marketing activities and exercises.

Unfortunately, the workshop could not thoroughly address contract negotiation due to time constraints. However, this challenge birthed an innovative solution: selecting a group within Hope Rural Investment to specialize in negotiations and exploring new markets. This specialized group will utilize Hope Rural Investment’s proven group marketing approach, ensuring the collective benefit of all members.

The conclusion of this workshop marked a critical turning point in Hope Rural Investment’s journey towards bolstered market penetration and financial growth. With new-found marketing acumen, improved contract management capabilities, and enhanced negotiation techniques, Hope Rural Investment is set to make significant strides in widening its market presence and capturing untapped opportunities.

With a dynamic marketing plan that perfectly aligns with customer needs and profitability, Hope Rural Investment is poised to make waves in the agricultural sector. They are set to deliver exceptional product offerings, streamline distribution, execute targeted promotional activities, and offer remarkable service across diverse market segments.

The tale of Hope Rural Investment’s transformation, facilitated by Stephen Bullen, is a testament to Winrock’s Farmer-to-Farmer Program’s potential. It demonstrates the remarkable impact of collaborative efforts, knowledge exchange, and capacity building in driving sustainable growth within the agricultural sector. The investment in the skills and abilities of rural farmers is rapidly shifting the course of Ghana’s agricultural industry toward economic prosperity.

Through unwavering support and empowering initiatives such as these, Hope Rural Investment and other similar groups are steadily transforming the agricultural landscape of Ghana. The ripple effects of this transformation promise increased sales, improved livelihoods, and a brighter future for all involved stakeholders.

As we share this success story, we celebrate the power of the Farmer-to-Farmer program and Winrock International’s dedication to cultivating prosperity in rural communities. We’re committed to our mission of nurturing similar success stories and amplifying the transformative power of collaborative knowledge sharing and capacity building for a brighter and more sustainable future in agriculture.

Investing in women’s leadership means prioritizing and centering women’s perspectives and their lived experiences of the kinds of gender bias and discrimination that drive exploitation. Women’s perspectives and profound personal knowledge of such gendered power structures are the keys to fully understanding vulnerability, preventing exploitation, and advancing sustainable change. Even more importantly, we need to promote diverse forms of leadership of women who can authentically speak with and for those most directly affected. We asked several women from across Winrock to answer in their own words why they think women’s leadership is essential in their respective areas of expertise.

Every year in March, we celebrate women, their achievements, and their tremendous contributions to our society, and what better way to celebrate than by highlighting a woman who is making a significant impact in her field? Mina H. Lassey, Winrock International’s Farmer-to-Farmer Country Director, is one such woman dedicated to empowering women in the agricultural sector in Ghana. Mina Lassey boasts over two decades of experience in the development sector, with a particular focus on managing projects to improve the lives of individuals and communities. She has held various roles during her career, including serving as the F2F Program Manager for nine years. Mina’s expertise lies in project management, monitoring and evaluation, agribusiness, and natural resource management, which she has leveraged to implement impactful development projects. Presently, Mina is the Country Director of The Farmer to Farmer Program in Ghana, where she continues to make significant contributions towards empowering local communities and promoting sustainable development.

According to studies, 62% of economically active women in Africa work in agriculture as producers, traders, and processors. Unfortunately, despite their high representation in the sector, rural women still lag behind men in terms of productivity and earnings. Mina recognized this problem and has worked tirelessly to empower women to thrive in the agricultural sector. Mina leads the West Africa F2F Country Project, which supports post-harvest, predominantly female-dominated areas. Through this project, Mina aims to empower women-owned agribusinesses with technical support, business training, and access to high-value markets and resources. She believes empowering these women will transform Ghana’s agricultural sector’s productivity and prosperity.

Mina’s work has already yielded positive results. For example, Meannan Foods, a woman-led agribusiness, received an award for being the best agribusiness in which the owners are under 40 years old. The F2F project provided support in online marketing skills to help increase sales and access international markets. Another success story is Hendy Farms, another woman-led agribusiness that received support from F2F to build a processing facility and diversify its product lines. Hendy Farms was also awarded during a Hortifresh Fair for having the best-packaged products.
These organizations are a testament to the power of women’s leadership in the agricultural sector. With the proper support, women-led businesses can thrive, impacting their livelihoods and the agricultural sector as a whole. Mina’s work gives us hope for the future and inspires us to support women’s leadership in our respective fields. Mina’s dedication to empowering women in the agricultural sector exemplifies what can be achieved when women are given the support they need to succeed. Her work inspires us all, and we can learn from her example to empower more women in our communities and fields of work.

Volunteer with the members of the Association of Mushroom Producers Ashanti (AoMPA)

As I am stepping into my eighties, I recognize nothing more rewarding than being associated with scientific research and being able to reach out and help our society and the international community. The latter became possible for me via the wonderful oyster mushroom.  I am thankful for the Farmer-to-Farmer (F2F) program, funded by USAID, for opening up the wide world of serving and helping my fellow human beings in developing communities improve the quality of their food enriched with mushroom protein.

Discussion with the group outside, using the flip chart

This time it was in Kenyasi in the Ashanti region of Ghana, Africa. This was my third assignment in Ghana. The wonderful oyster mushroom is lending itself for cultivation and fruiting against all the odds of unfavorable conditions. The group I trained is a small association of mushroom growers and they are highly motivated and interested, but they are in need of more technical skills when growing crops of this kind. For many years they used narrow neck soda bottles for spawn preparation and small heat resistant plastic bags for the partially composted sawdust as a substrate for cultivation. It works but was rather inefficient, slow and cumbersome. Then they reached out for training.

Volunteer demonstrating the use of a HEPA filter he brought for constructing a Laminar Flow Hood

We adapted the small heat resistant plastic bags of theirs to be spawn bags instead of the soda bottles and worked together to increase their awareness of and ability to use other plant materials readily available in their environments such as banana leaves, and coconut husks. Of course, other kinds of hay, grain plant stalks, and straw are also useful. Specifically, this nation is becoming self-sufficient with rice cultivation making rice stalks their primary alternative as a substrate for mushroom cultivation. The training was mainly held in an outdoor classroom, often moving inside to the group’s mushroom incubation room. So it allowed the participant’s good exercise each time they had to move their chairs back and forth.

The presentations were centered on discussions rather than just a one-way lecture. The group particularly liked using the flip paper chart as it will stay as an open document for them. We enjoyed making a mushroom pie, mushroom pizza, pickled mushroom, and mushroom kababs, using their high tech charcoal oven.

Making and trying the mushroom pizza!