Women in Agribusiness: Mastercard Foundation and IDH create over 22,000 jobs in Northern Ghana

Women in Africa face significant barriers to achieving economic equality with their male counterparts.

Research has shown that this is due to a general lack of property rights, access to credit, education, technical skills, health, protection against gender-based violence, and political power.

Access to and control over productive resources, including land, have been increasingly recognized in global discussions as key factors in reducing poverty, ensuring food security, and promoting gender equality.

Indeed, this argument has been widely accepted by both feminists and development theorists since the 1980s, as noted in a study published in 2015 by Isaac Dery.

However, with the prevailing belief that women would be married off, women in Northern Ghana historically did not have access to land and ended up being laborers on other people's lands to earn a living.

Driven by a belief that all people should have an equal chance to succeed, the Mastercard Foundation, in partnership with IDH, has embarked on a mission to end poverty among women and empower them in several fields, including agriculture.

The Mastercard Foundation and IDH, through their partnership with AMAATI Company Limited, have lifted the seeming ban on land ownership by women, thereby promoting access to agribusiness.

In April 2022, the Mastercard Foundation and IDH launched an innovative partnership, dubbed "Grains for Growth," to transform Ghana’s grain market.

The program aims to develop inclusive and economically viable grain supply chains that offer employment and entrepreneurship opportunities, contribute to better incomes, and improve the livelihoods of farmers, especially women and youth.

Over a three-and-a-half-year period, the “Grains for Growth” program has partnered with a dozen small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in northern Ghana, high-profile off-takers, and other supply chain actors, to create thousands of work opportunities across the maize, rice, millet, fonio, and sorghum supply chains, with the majority of these targeting young Ghanaian women and men.

The program has also supported the inclusion of about 20, 000 smallholder farmers through optimized sourcing and service delivery structures, aiming to significantly increase incomes for participating farmers which is valued over $200,000.

"The partnership with Mastercard Foundation and IDH has supported AMAATI to carry out ploughing services for smallholder farmers, provide seeds, and also support them with post-harvest management tools like tarpaulins so that they can have quality products," noted Salma Abdulai, Co-founder and CEO of AMAATI Company Limited, in a video documentary.

"The partnership has expanded the scope of AMAATI in terms of smallholder farmers and our supplies. For the past two years, we have supported 4,000 smallholder women farmers, and these farmers have increased their yields by at least 10%, making more income. Generally, we’ve increased our supplies by about 20% because of this initiative.

"Also, we have been able to link to markets, and we are working to get other markets on board, which is generating revenue for AMAATI and making us a sustainable business. With the Mastercard Foundation and IDH, we have been able to impact over 22,000 youth employment opportunities in the value chain, but it is also empowering women; women are now making decisions in their families and are respected in their communities because they are earning a dignified income," Abdulai added.

Prior to the arrival of the Mastercard Foundation and IDH, the women in the area, despite not having access to land, were also struggling to get a market for their fonio.

"We used to suffer in selling our fonio but AMAATI has come closer to us, so we do not suffer anymore," said Fuseina Lamboo, a Fonio farmer and beneficiary of the Mastercard Foundation and IDH’s initiative.

With the initiative, the women, who are about 5,000 smallholder farmers, are able to sell their fonio and make enough money through their dignified fonio jobs.

Another beneficiary, Mobo Adasua, remarked, "What they have done for us is enough for everyone... now we can also count money."

The Grains for Growth program is part of IDH’s Grown Sustainably in Africa (GSA) program stretched throughout Africa to incorporate smallholder farmers and SMEs into their supply chains through close capacity building, business development support, and facilitating market linkages.

AMAATI, a triple-bottom-line business enterprise tackling food insecurity and poverty in the rural Savannah Zone, was formed with the idea of creating sustainable livelihoods for women farmers whose lands are degraded due to excessive usage.

They believe that sustainable food production and consumption depend heavily on the soil, and as such, AMAATI is using a market-led approach to support vulnerable landless women in deprived communities in rural savannahs to cultivate a unique indigenous grain, "Fonio,” on poor community soils that have been abandoned.

Fonio is a neglected indigenous crop that has the unique ability to regenerate depleted soils after 3 years of continuous cultivation.