World Vision Ghana Holds Market Linkage Fairs for Smallholder Farmers and Agribusinesses in West Gonja, Kessana Nankana West District
By Francis Npong
World Vision Ghana (WVG) is implementing the Landscape and Environmental Agility Across the Nation (LEAN) project, a four-year project funded by the European Union’s flagship Global Climate Change Alliance Plus (GCCA+) initiative in the Kessena Nankana West and West Gonja Municipalities.
As part of the project's activities, World Vision Ghana organised a market linkage fair in the Kessana Nankana West District and the West Gonja Municipality. These activities aim to promote the visibility of agricultural value chain activities, promote business-to-business (B2B) opportunities, and build a network to support sustainable access to the market and services of key value chain products. The fair also provided a platform for smallholder farmers and agribusinesses owners to interact, exchange information, share lessons and learn from each other, as well as build and strengthen networks.
It also provided a platform for farmers to access resources such as farm inputs, technical knowledge, and marketing and financial services. The market linkage fairs also provided an opportunity for stakeholders to identify challenges and opportunities in the agricultural value chain to address.
The project manager, Joseph Yelkabon Edwin, said these activities formed part of measures to facilitate direct linkages between local value chain actors and potential buyers and service providers, promote co-learning, and share experiences across partners and projects in similar fields. This was to ensure the sustainability of the benefits of the EU-LEAN project.
“This will enable stakeholders to drive multiple benefits from the project. In particular, it is aimed at promoting public-private partnerships and networking among smallholder farmers and agricultural value chain actors to create a larger market and knowledge for stakeholders in the agricultural sector and agriculture-related products", he said.
The acting Northern Regional Operations Manager, Sergious Before, urged stakeholders to take advantage of the platform to network and create a larger market for their products.
"This is the surest way to improve agribusinesses, overcome poverty, build smallholder farmers' resilience, and increase productivity. Promoting partnerships and building networks of stakeholders in the value chain is critical to sustaining this intervention”, he added.
In addition to promoting environmental agility, conserving biodiversity, building climate resilience, and reducing emissions from land use changes, the project, while helping local farmers improve their livelihoods, also focuses on creating employment opportunities for youth and gender-inclusive value chain activities, improving access to markets and information, and strengthening the institutional capacity of local value chain actors. The project is being implemented in three targeted landscapes, the High Forest, the Transition Zone, and the Savannah Landscape, by a consortium of four local and international NGOs comprising World Vision Ghana, the Rainforest Alliance, Tropenbos Ghana, and EcoCare Ghana.