Women in farming especially in rural Ghana face many challenges thus are restricted to small-scale farming.
This is mainly because majority of them dont own the land and also dont have access to credit.
Based on this backdrop, a nominee of the 2018 MTN Heroes of Change has dedicated her life to make a change in women in rural farming at Okushiebiade in Ga-East Municipal Assembly.
Josephine Agbo Nettey, Founder of the Integrated Development in Focus is focused on training rural farmers mostly women in modern farming methods.
The NGO has provided employable skills to over 120 active women farmers and contributed to the regeneration of degraded lands.
Madam Nettey explains why she must win the competition
• What is your motivation?
When I first entered the community whilst I was working with an NGO as a field worker on outreach duties, I saw a lot of arable and uninhabited land being destroyed by people mining sand on the land in the community, yet the people were poor.
I planned that in future I will help to promote a sustainable agricultural practices among forty-five (45) women farmers in the Okushiebiade Electoral Area to enable them restore the degraded lands through integrated water and soil management as a community-based forest woodlot/agro forestry that will prevent wild bushfires, natural regeneration of the degraded land for enrichment planting of crops.
I started with the building and sustaining capacities of women farmers to enable them identify innovative strategies, approaches and models in linking trade and livelihoods to sustainable land management. My compassion towards women and children pushed me to start this project to help reduce poverty in this district which I hail from.
• Explain your project
My project is an NGO called Integrated Development in Focus (DIF) and we have been able to successfully demonstrate that Non-Governmental organizations could complement the efforts of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture by reaching out to very deprived urban/rural communities with service delivery. We have been able to reclaim arable lands lost to sand winning activities and demarcated and shared them amongst unemployed women. We have been able to equip rural farmers mostly women with technical skills. They have been trained in modern farmingmethods.
We started by providing each beneficiary with livestock (male and female), seedlings, farm tools and starting capital of GHC40.00. This initiative started in 2009. We received a grant from the Global Environmental Facility/Small Grant Programme (GEF-SGP).
I invite Agricultural specialist to transfer practical skills and knowledge to the women through the Department of Food and Agriculture extension workers and other agronomist who impact on best and promising farming practices in the participating and surrounding communities. We are currently in eight communities in the Ga-East District
• How do you fund the project?
I started this project with my personal savings, financial support from my husband. I later received a grant from the Global Environment Facility from 2009-2013. I got support from the District Assembly who provided bulldozers to help us reclaim the lands. We receive technical support from the Ministry of Food and Agriculture.
• How much impact has your project had?
Through my program, I have been able to provide life employable skills and training including livelihood for income generation to over 120 active women farmers who have also imparted their skills to ten individuals each as a prerequisite for expansion and regeneration of degraded lands.
So I can say through this program I have impacted the lives of 1,200 rural farmers and over 200 families. Women and some men beneficiaries now enjoy improved and high produce on their farm lands and make enough sales to send their children to senior secondary schools of their choice.
• What are your major achievements?
Aside impacting the lives of over 200 families, I am a glad recipient of the Equator award for sustainable land management in Sub-Saharan Africa. I am glad that our initiative is being replicated in other African countries like Kenya. I have been able to influence the construction of roads in some areas in the community.
• What challenges have you faced?
It has not been easy working with rural communities and it required a lot of tact, patience, motivation and continuous training and re-training, following-up, monitoring and evaluation.
 It has been difficult educating people to stop mining arable farm lands.
 We are always confronted with funding issues. We need funds to sustain this project and also extend it to other surrounding communities. This project has proven that with the right investment, lots of unemployed youth can benefit from it.
 Climate change has affected rain patterns here.
 Withdrawal/ low support from townsmen who are not patient enough to wait for months to see the benefits of their hardwork.
• How do you feel when you see the impact your
work has had?
I feel humbled and blessed. It is a happy feeling that lives of the young ones have seen a dramatic turn. I am always happy to listen to beneficiaries share stories of their wards completing senior high and tertiary institutions.
• Do you have any plans for the future?
 I want to acquire more farming tools to help beneficiaries increase their yields.
 I want to engage the youth to see farming as a lucrative business and not rather engage in sand mining.
 I want to secure more arable lands and help reduce the incidence of people working on borrowed lands that they have no authority over.
 I want construct a world-class Agricultural training centre that will harness professionally trained agric officers.
Why did you nominate the nominee?
I nominated Josephine and her NGO, Integrated Development Focus for successfully demonstrating that non-governmental organizations can augment the efforts of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture by reaching out to the deprived urban-rural communities, provide them with the appropriate technical support to help them increase their yields. She has a great compassion for other women who function as head of families.
Most of them are single mothers and single fathers as well. They work timely to maintain their families and some have poor education and finances. This situation trickles down to affect the children. Their daughters give birth at early ages and become single mothers and the boys don’t have education or professions. She has built the capacity of at least 142 deprived indigenous women farmers in the GA west.
That is what really touched me. I know she has invested her time, talent and treasures to the development of people and deserves recognition. People usually go and leverage on media attention but she does it on passion, her time and treasure, all her investment has been put into this. She deserves to be recognize for efforts.
Nominator – Benedict Kyei
• Why do you think she deserves help?
She’s using her pension to help others. She is always happy when she hearsabout the success stories of her beneficiaries. This type of person should get funding from somewhere. She’s providing employable skills, income generating activity. What actually moved me, was at the GA west, when she was trying to convert degraded lands to arable lands. It marvels me. There was land scarcity and lands that couldn’t support plants but she helped
restore them to its fertile state. She has lots of plans to fulfil.