Dry Season Farming

Background of Project!

The Upper East Region according to Ghana Statistical Service profiling is the second poorest region in Ghana located in the northern savannah zone. Largely, farming is the predominant vocation of the habitants of the region. Women are some of the most industrious people considering the fact that they are usually engaged in all forms of enterprises for the upkeep of their families. In the face of all these endeavors however, women still remain in the most economically deprived bracket.

Over the years this situation has resulted in forced migration of women in the region to the south where they are exposed to exploitation in different ways. It is important to also indicate that these forced migrations happen across the dry season when it becomes impossible to engage in rain fed agriculture.

The upper east region is the second poorest region in Ghana. Women are the most hit in this situation and by extension their children and community at large. Baseline research has shown that irrigation schemes that have been developed across the region to reduce poverty through the dry season farming has not achieved the needed impact. Broken-down irrigation structures make the dry season irrigation farming a difficult task to engage in especially for women. TEERE’s research in Tono and Vea revealed the need for some farm inputs such as water pumps, snap sacks, improved seeds, fertilizers, and pesticides. The high cost and non-availability of these inputs is fast discouraging women from dry season farming. This phenomenon of long period of deprivation amongst women has resulted in the current high rate of rural-urban immigration of women from the Upper East to the southern Ghana where they are exploited and in worse cases, trafficked.

TEERE identified an opportunity to intervene and responded to the call for proposals for the German small scale project. TEERE proposed to use its existing Village Savings and Loans Associations (VSLA) women vegetable farmers as the target group of this project. The rationale is that these women are committed to self-help initiatives to enhance their economic status. An investment into their dry season farming is also a means of giving them a sustainable means of contributing regularly to their VSLA groups.