THE BAOBAB VALUE CHAIN-HOW ORGIIS IS EMPOWERING WOMEN IN THE UPPER EAST REGION OF GHANA IN AGRICULTURE.

                                                                            

 

We believe that Agribusinesses can play a critical role in scaling up and promoting agricultural innovations that have the potential to help bridge the gender gap in African Agriculture.

~Wanjiru Kamau-Rutenberg

(Director of African Women in Agricultural Research and Development)

ORGIIS Ghana, also, Organisation for Indigenous Initiatives and Sustainability, is a local non-profit, non-governmental organization (NGO) in the Upper East Region. The organisation is on a mission to empower people using local knowledge to create sustainable communities through indigenous and endogenous development. Its strategic location in Paga allows the organisation to enjoy economic and administrative relations with its Francophone and Anglophone neighbours. They include Burkina Faso, La Cote d’Ivoire, Mali, Niger and Togo. This is made possible through the active Ghana-Burkina Faso border at Paga.

ORGIIS undertakes projects across its domain of interest through its field offices. They facilitate these projects through partnerships and collaborations with other institutions that share mutual interests. Since its inception in 2011, ORGIIS Ghana has adopted innovative and cutting edge approaches to spur local initiatives in sustainable development. ORGIIS Ghana always aims to leverage appropriate indigenous knowledge to overcome the challenges of underdevelopment, good governance, entrenched poverty, climate change and environmental degradation in the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) zone. It contributes to sustainable local development by using scientific knowledge in the fields of agronomy, extension, anthropology, sociology, economics, conservation, and ICT for development, interfacing it with indigenous knowledge to ensure high impact and enhanced interventions on the socioeconomic transformation of its target populations in local communities

As a dynamic and growing NGO, it is interested in extending its scope, relevance, and recognition across the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) zone of Ghana to include Bono, Ahafo, and Northern Volta.  It has a total of 12,362 beneficiaries, consisting of 11,034 females and 1,328 males. ORGIIS partners with the private sector to obtain sustainable employments for the beneficiaries.  This enables them earn an income to sustain their livelihood. The organization is involved in projects that cuts across Agriculture and Natural Resources Management; Renewable Energy Products and Solutions; Community Empowerment and Enterprise Development; Information Communication Technology and the development of supply chains using the value chain approach through sustainable collection of Savannah and Sahel tree products. The Northern Region of Ghana is predominantly gifted for the production of some Non timber Forest Products (NTFPs) such as medicinal plants, shea, sesame and baobab. Aside from providing jobs for the beneficiaries, ORGIIS facilitates the coordination of smallholder farmers as well as farmer-based organizations (FBOs) to eliminate direct transactions between the farmers and buyers. In addition, they are responsible for Traceability and Quality Control on all value chain activities.

If Climate Change has taught us anything it is the call for the protection of forest and bio-diversity. Thus, the management of NTFPs is an area of growing concern and need to be supported. It contributes to local economies, food security and the dietary needs of communities that are solely forest dependent. As a nation, these are areas that requires investment to enable conserve our depleted forest zones. Also, the marketing NTFPs should be encouraged to boost income for poor people in the tropics. The various commodity value chains they engage in influence the Ghanaian and Burkinabe markets. They have a total of 3,346 women involved in collecting, cleaning and processing fruits in 63 communities in these two states.

One notable development of the NTFP value chain is the Baobab industry, which is mainly for export with a recorded average annual volume of 70 metric tonnes. Once collection, processing and cleaning is done, the marketing of the product falls on ORGIIS in liaison with KANBAOCU, a locally controlled forest products cooperative union. Baobab is marketed in the form of powder, oil, husk and fibre. ORGIIS supports the women who are small scale producers in the Baobab value chain of Northern Ghana to export the end products through a foreign entity.

                                    

                            Source: ORGIIS

The Baobab fruit is harvested in the dry season, split open and the dry pulp, extracted. The extracted pulp goes through the beating process to convert it into powder leaving the residue of seeds or kernels and husks behind. Baobab products aside from its commercial purposes can be used on the locally in our various households in our drinks, soups or sauces. The kernel is processed into oil and the waste product serve as livestock feed or fuel. The women groups are sourced from the community, district and national levels stretching to over 43 communities, 10 zones in 17 districts and covering three regions in Northern Ghana.

As with every organization that performs brilliant work to support the vulnerable, it runs into some challenges.  Women groups that participate in the commodity value chain face the problem of inadequate warehousing support. Also, there is the inability to access sustainable markets for Shea butter processing cooperatives. The high capital needed to acquire machinery to convert baobab seed into oil for the cosmetic industry slows down operations. In addition, the scope of the intervention is affected by the decrease in donor funds for low middle income countries.

ORGIIS, in organizing the women to be economically empowered is a commendable effort which does not only benefit these women but contributes significantly to the society. It goes a long way in achieving some of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in eradicating poverty and hunger; promoting gender equality; encouraging climate action; providing decent jobs and economic growth.