As the country marks the 33rd National Farmers’ Day today, some women farmers in the Savelugu/Nanton Municipality have called on the government to review the land tenure system to enable them to benefit from the Planting for Food and Jobs programme (PFJ).
They said they did not own land, a situation which denied many of them the opportunity to benefit from the PFJ, which required beneficiaries to have at least an acre of land to be selected for the PFJ.
Madam Abiba Alhassan, a farmer at Zaazi, a community in the Savelugu/Nanton Municipality, who summarized the views of other women farmers in the area, said addressing the land acquisition challenges facing women farmers would help them to benefit from the PFJ, which would ensure income to take care of their families.
Madam Alhassan was speaking at a community engagement at Zaazi facilitated by the Youth Empowerment for Life (YEfL), a youth development oriented non-governmental organization, to assess farmers’ opinions on the implementation of the PFJ.
Madam Alhassan said only one woman was selected for PFJ from the Zaazi community even though a number of them engaged in agricultural production in the area.
She lauded the PFJ as it enabled farmers to increase their acreage of production and income.
Government earlier this year launched the PFJ to amongst others boost agricultural production whiles creating jobs.
Mr Abdul Ganiyu Alhassan, Technical Advisor on Advocacy, Youth and Gender at YEfL under the Empowerment for Life Programme, appealed to government to introduce an animal rearing component to the PFJ to benefit women who did not have land.
He expressed need for government to review the land policy and put women into groups for block farming with access to tractor services to enable them to benefit from the PFJ.
More so, he said, there is the need for government talk to chiefs to release land for women to develop for the PFJ for increased production.
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