Madam Mariama Kadiri, a forty two years old smallholder farmer at Tolon in the Northern Region has expanded her agribusiness that includes the cultivation of groundnuts, rice and her shea butter production.

Her processing of rice from paddy to grain has also witnessed an increase from one to three bags for household consumption.

Madam Kadiri said she used to be idle most of the time but increasing her production in groundnut, rice and shea butter processing had not only kept her busy but also ensured increased income enabling her to better support her household.

She attributed her success in the various agribusiness to the Village Savings and Loans Association (VSLA) that she joined about three years ago at Tolon, which gave her loans and enabled her to invest in expanding her business.

Madam Kadiri is not the only female whose business has been revived through the activities of VSLA as about 150 others in five districts in the Northern, Upper East and Upper West Regions have also expanded as well as diversified their business activities in the areas of legumes production and shea butter processing, enabling them to play critical roles in the development of their families.

Other women beneficiaries have also reported using part of their earnings to support their husbands to purchase fertilizers and other agricultural inputs to improve their agricultural production.

VSLA is a group of people, who collectively support a structured process for saving money and offering loans at a local-level to members, who do not have ready access to formal financial services such as banks or microfinance institutions.

With funding from CGIAR Research Programme on Grain, Legumes and Drylands Cereals, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research – Savannah Agricultural Research Institute (CSIR-SARI) in collaboration with International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) organised the beneficiary women in Tolon, Mion, and Nadowli Districts, and West Mamprusi, and Bawku Municipalities into the VSLA to enhance their access to funds and other resources to improve their agricultural productivity.

Whereas CSIR-SARI maintained its core mandate and also as the implementing agency for the project that involved developing and promoting certified improved legumes varieties on the project, SEND Ghana facilitated the training of the VSLA groups.

CSIR-SARI in collaboration with ICRISAT has been implementing the Tropical Legumes (TLIII) project, to ensure availability and access to affordable legumes through the use of good agricultural practices to increase farmers’ yields.

However, it has been identified that most smallholder women farmers in the project communities have limited or no access to land, labour, inputs or credit due to less power invested in them, a situation, which negatively affected their operations hence the introduction of the VSLA.

Madam Kadiri said the support she received from the VSLA had enabled her to become financially independent and also improve on her business.

Mr Desmond Adogoba, Gender and Social Scientist on the CSIR-SARI/TLIII project, said the intervention was to strengthen and engage groups into the seed systems where they would be able to generate funds to purchase the quantity of certified and quality seeds needed for their agricultural production.

Dr Jummai Yila, Gender Research Scientist at ICRISAT was happy that the intervention was ensuring smallholder women farmers’ access to improved legume varieties being developed by CSIR-SARI thereby increasing their productivity.