Entrepreneurs in Ghana’s farming industry are improving their lives and their industry by joining together and employing new marketing strategies.
With nearly 70 percent of the inhabitants of northern Ghana relying on farming as a source of income, it makes sense that the farmers have joined forces to improve their industry. Before forming the Savanna Farmers Marketing Company, farmers found it extremely difficult to get their produce to consumers while making a profit and enough income to support themselves. This was due to a complete absence of marketing tools.
However, with the Savanna Farmers Marketing Company now in place, the farmers have found themselves in a far better position, thanks to the fact that the Savanna Farmers Marketing Company is supplying the produce to a fixed market at a fixed price that is far better than the farmers would have received on their own. This means that there is a greater income for the farmers, who are not only now able to improve their standard of living but also invest their new revenue stream into technology on their farms. Whether it’s buying a tractor and plough or a team of oxen to pull ploughs through their fields, the farmers are now embracing technology that replaces their inadequate farming methods of the past and allows them to improve their crops, thereby increasing the amount that they sell and their income.
By using new technology, farmers who were once only able to use 1 acre of their land are now using 3 and 4 acres. Instead of buying seeds and finding that only a small portion was usable, the farmers are now being given access to better quality raw materials and are able to maximise their crops, which, thanks to the Savanna Farmers Marketing Company, they have diversified.
Savanna Farmers Marketing Company buys and aggregates produce from small-scale farmers, for all way seeds to agro processes and the various crops that we deal with. We buy crops like soya beans, sorghum, granols and cashew. At the farm gates, we clean, we sort, we bark and we grade the produce, and then we sell to agro processors on behalf of the small-scale farmers,” says Janet Chigabatia Adama, MD of the Savanna Farmers Marketing Company.
Depending on where you are, there is a huge difference between “farming” and “farming”. Through the Savanna Farmers Marketing Company, some of Ghana’s farmers have managed to turn their underperforming ventures into successful and viable farming businesses that have allowed them to uplift themselves and their communities.
