Women's Farming
Project
Improving outcomes for rural families
Women farmers in rural communities face enormous challenges. Liberia’s long civil war has destroyed much of the country’s infrastructure, making access to markets and other entrepreneurial opportunities extremely difficult.
Building on Community Strengths
Bong County Women's Farming Cooperative
Kpo’ma Women has partnered with a group of women farmers in Bong County, Liberia. This group is passionate and highly skilled in their work, but outdated tools limit production and lead to post-harvest losses. Manual farming with outdated tools requires long hours of arduous labor and results in suboptimal returns on crop harvests. The women farmers have identified a critical need for equipment such as palm oil processing machinery, rice production equipment and cassava processors. Access to this equipment will allow them to reduce their labor, diversify their products and increase their income for other advancement opportunities.
The Women's Farming Cooperative in Bong County
Sustainable Technology
Improvements in farm technology, "Must be private-sector driven, environmentally compatible and climate smart, and must also be economically viable and affordable, especially for small-scale farmers who constitute the bulk of African farmers. It is vital that it targets women, who bear the brunt of African agriculture"
(FAO & AUC. 2018).
Farming equipment can add value to the yields.
Cassava has been recognized as a strategic crop in Africa due to its high potential to contribute to pro-poor rural and agricultural development (IFAD).
Upgrading the rice value chain involves milling technologies.
In Liberia, almost 95% of smallholder oil palm producers use the traditional method of manually extracting palm oil from palm fruit. When processed by hand, about 50% of the oil is lost.
Cassava has been recognized as a strategic crop in Africa due to its high potential to contribute to pro-poor rural and agricultural development (IFAD).
-Women farmers play a key role in Liberia’s agriculture sector and agricultural value chains.
-Overall, agricultural value chains face enormous challenges, but paying attention to women’s constraints is particularly important.
-Government interventions need to focus on women’s key constraints and diverse opportunities, and ensure solutions are sustainable over the long term.
-Success in interventions to address gender issues in agriculture and value chains will require well- defined institutional roles and mandates, better technical and program implementation capacity, and effective coordination.
- Improved gender-aware data collection is key for evidence-based policy design, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation.
Pengai Village Women's Farming Cooperative
Project Update
We want to thank everyone who helped us raise funds for our Women Farmer's Project. The funding covered
Rice Mill
This equipment will allow women to decrease their labor and increase productivity. The rice mill will also be used by farmers from nearby villages for a small fee. This fee will be used for maintenance of the machine.
Training on Equipment Use and Maintenance
The Women's Cooperative chose 8 people to be trained on the operation and maintenance of the rice mill. Learning these skill is key to empowerment
Portable Solar Lanterns
There is no electricity in the village. These small solar latrens will provide an easy and safe way to light for homes. Thank you to Luminaid .
PICS Grain Storage Bags
These post harvest storage bags are a simple and cost-effective way to store crops and seeds without chemicals . Using these bags improve food security and decreases post-harvest losses.
