Acquire food processing, packaging and preservation skills – Action Aid
Ms. Melody Azinim, the Brong-Ahafo Regional Manager of Action Aid Ghana has advised women farmers to learn simple skills of food processing, packaging and preserving farm produce to avoid wastage.
She observed that most agricultural yields got rotten in the farms because most small holder farmers, especially women were not skillfully empowered in the processing of traditional foods.
Azinim gave the advice at the end of a three-day training prograrmme organised by Action Aid Ghana on processing, packaging and preservation of local staples like rice, millet , sorghum and maize for 40 selected participants from women farming groups from the Asutifi and Tain Districts in the Brong-Ahafo Region at Abesim near Sunyani .
It formed part of Action Aid’s Five Years’ Promoting Opportunity for Women Empowerment and Right (POWER) Project funded by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and aims at empowering 6,000 rural women to control their income.
The project also seeks to promote economic livelihood opportunities for women by ensuring their economic sustainability to have access to markets.
She urged the participants to put the knowledge acquired into practice by adding value to their farm produce to attract higher prices and entreated them to impart the knowledge acquired to others in their respective groups to also add value to their farm produce for more financial returns.
Ms Lydia Annan from the Business Advisory Centre (BAC) in Sunyani who took the participants through hygiene and food safety urged them not to do anything that could result in the contamination of their products.
She urged them to operate in a clean environment by ensuring that their surroundings, equipment and the ingredients used in the preparation of their products were clean.
“You must dress neatly and be healthy by going for medical test for certification before engaging in the processing and packaging business”, Ms Annan added.
She entreated them to make their products in a very pleasant form for easy consumption and to create market opportunities for them at local, national and international levels.
The participants commended Action Aid for the programme and described the training and skills gained as a poverty reduction opportunity for them and rural women farmers in general.
Source: GNA