Agrihouse inaugurates club to boost women participation in agribusiness
Agrihouse Foundation, a non-governmental agricultural organisation, has inaugurated the Agriwoman Marketplace Business Club to expand the market access, and enhance agribusiness of women in the country.
The club would put in place, structures, and create platforms for partnership among women agricultural entrepreneurs and associations as well as financing and other support institutions.
As part of its operations, the club would create a sense of community and partnership among the women, and support them to develop their business ideas, identify innovative means to expand their markets.
It would also create a platform that would allow the women to discuss their challenges and deliberate on solutions, while working closely with the foundation to implement of interventional projects that would address their concerns.
The inauguration occurred at the sixth edition of the Agriwoman Marketplace, a monthly farmers’ market event that seeks to expand market accessibility for women farmers.
The marketplace also serves as a support system for agri-processors, input dealers and information technology providers, aimed at helping women farmers and agribusiness owners to recover from the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.
According to the Executive Director of Agrihouse Foundation, Alberta Nana Akyaa Akosa, the club would be aimed at “helping the agri-women to properly structure and coordinate the efforts of agri-preneurs.”
The club will “help them (women farmers agri-preneurs) expand their initiatives and attract new opportunities within the agric space,” she added.
She expressed her gratitude to the women for accepting their new volunteering roles as executives of the Agriwoman Marketplace Business Club, which would last for a year.
She encouraged the club members to cultivate the habit of teamwork, and bring their talents and skills on board to help the beneficiaries initiate creative ideas that would enable the growth of the club and its members.
“We are truly humbled, that we are able to contribute to an agenda, which further strengthen women, scale them up, promote Agri-women products and services, whiles providing an environment for networking,” she underscored.
The Agriwoman Marketplace initiative
The marketplace, is an interventional project, funded and organised by Agrihouse Foundation.
The platform is continually engaging women farmers in ways that encourages them to be committed to being in the field, while bringing on board their own creativity in addition to technical skills to help further grow.
Providing the importance of the initiative, Ms Akosa, said, “It is rewarding and fulfilling to see this initiative expand,” as in the first month, 22 women Agribusinesses coming round to display their products and services.
She indicated that in the second month, it increased to 27, but due to financial constraints in the third month, only 17 women businesses were supported. However, in the fifth and sixth months, the number increased to 35.
The seven-member Agriwoman Marketplace Business Club
In all, seven agriwomen were selected to fill the executive roles of the new club. They include, Mad Serwah Asafu-Adjaye Zoogah, Madam Mavis Walker Blagodzi, Vice president, and Mad Mazia Florence Tomazia Cossou, as Secretary.
The Organiser of the club is Mad Jacqueline Ruby Sackitey, Treasurer, Mad Bertha Ama Ataawa Kpodo, Mad Mabel Quashie, and Mad Nora Osei Bonsu, for the club’s Advisory Council.
The President of the Business Club, Mad Asafu-Adjaye, on behalf of the team, thanked Agrihouse Foundation for giving them an opportunity to serve.
She said the team, in the coming weeks, would be meeting to draw an agenda and workable plans that would enable them to initiate ideas to push the business Club, and its members, forward.
READ ALSO: 27, 500 Beneficiaries Of Agric Project To Be Financially Independent