By Marrilyn Schuster, President of Yakote Women Farmers (YWF)
There were many smiling faces at the the celebration of the soy plant opening in Yakote, and with good reasons! YWF built the plant and Rural Enterprise of Ghana purchased the equipment four, long years ago. Thankfully, the electricity was finally installed last week and the trainers were able to come to teach the women how to create soy milk and tofu! We will also be producing plumpy nut packages here for severely malnourished children. The soy plant is owned by the community (not the government) and operated by the women. This type of enterprise can make a huge and lasting difference to many people’s lives! Plus the soy milk and tofu is delicious and nutritious! Your donations have had such a wonderful impact.
At the soy processing plant to make tofu and spicy tofu kebobs.The fresh soy milk was delicious.Equipment at the soy processing facility.
Mary Kruger is a recently retired Special Education teacher from Oregon.
My first morning of my first trip to Ghana. I am in the rural area of the Northeast. I get up slowly after two days of travel, delay, Covid tests, and more travel, and I hear children’s voices. I go outside where it is already climbing to the usual high of 95 degrees. Six neighborhood children are ready to visit. They look like they range in age from one year to 10. They tell me their names. Among them are Angel, Denise, Sylvester. All are dressed in what could only be called rags at home. “Are you ready for a story?”, I ask. “Yes please!” all around. We move to the shade and I begin to read Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak. I was pretty sure this story had global appeal. Sure enough, by the time we were all roaring our terrible roars and gnashing our terrible teeth there were several adults gathered around us smiling and laughing. The children and I had a wonderful time and I repeated this story with other groups during my three short weeks in Ghana. But a thought lingers with me and follows me home. These children do not have books. Or decent clothes. Or enough food.
In Ghana, as well as many other places and countries, farmers live on the edge of survival. Mother nature is inconsistent at best in the savannah south of the Sahara in areas like the Nabdam District of Ghana where we work. This year the rains ended early resulting in low yields. There has also been an unexpected turn of events whereby after many years of absence, 25-30 elephants have returned to the area completely destroying millet, corn, and rice crops along a nearby river. For undernourished subsistence farmers and families in Nabdam, hunger is slowly becoming acute. This year in particular, the feeding programs at schools and a nutrition center will be important to maintaining normal growth and development for children. Yakote Women Farmers is buying extra food this visit in anticipation of food shortages. On our first day of shopping we bought 120 bags of food like those in the photo. Each bag weighs 125 pounds. Rice, beans, millet, corn, soy beans, and ground nuts were on the shopping list. To add protein and micronutrients, YWF bought over 200 pound of dried fish on this trip. Two more shopping trips are imminent.
Janet counts while Rabi measures, 20 bowls of product to each bag. These are my indispensable partners for buying food.Hauling the dried fish through the market in Bolgatanga
Starting very young, girls collect kindling for cooking fires in their homes. Even younger, they begin carrying water from the borehole or well. Without electricity or piped water in the homes, women and girls work is truly “never done.”
Our work with Yakote Women Farmers (YWF) in fostering improvements in agriculture and tree planting illustrates the problems and complexity of making progress, and in particular of being fair to everyone. Many farmers here are on the edge, struggling to support families and always on the edge of disaster if the rains are poor and the crops don’t yield.
On this trip we are once again with expert farmer Fuseini Bugbon to put on a workshop focused on improved local seed varieties as a strategy to adapt to climate change. Fuseini is an expert organic farmer and will teach composting and mulching methods to conserve water in an increasingly uncertain rainfall pattern.
It is dry season now, with temperatures reaching the high 90’s. We are working with a number of excellent farmers who work very hard. Our colleague Kolbil carries 50 water cans full every morning and again every late afternoon to keep his garden of onions and amaranth watered. A gas-powered pump would allow him to save time, and the pump could also be rented out to other farms for income. Getting this “leg up” would reduce his financial risks are he struggles to take care of his deceased brother’s children as well as his own.
But solutions are often complicated, with unforeseen effects. If we provide Kolbil with a pump, many other farmers will likewise want one. Although Kolbil is certainly deserving, many other farmers also work hard, and is it fair for him to get a pump and for him to do without? There is also a sustainability issue—can Kolbil afford the fuel and repairs over time needed to maintain the pump? Will a gas-powered pump draw down the water level in his well faster, leading to degradation of the water table faster?
Every day we work through problems like this, trying to come up with fair, efficient solutions to improve livelihoods and well-being. The long history of development work in Africa has shown that small solutions, empowered and led by local people, are the vest (often only) way to move forward. Yakote Women Farmers has a solid track record of employing this approach.
Meeting at a farm to discuss fencing and irrigationA well kept dry season farm with hand dug well, healthy vegetables, and a crude fence
Gone To Ghana 