They praised government for the Planting for Food and Jobs (PJA) initiative and said if they were supported to have access to regularised land, they could undertake farm ventures to improve on their incomes.

The women on daily basis pitch camps at the irrigation sites at Tono for the male farmers to hire their services to harvest their vegetables, after which they are paid their day’s wages.

The women expressed worry in an interview with the Ghana News Agency and said irregular patronage as farm hands affected their daily income which invariably affected their level of care for their homes.

Currently, the harvest of fresh pepper that is most trending attracts about 500 rural women to the farm gates for on-the-spot recruitment by farmers to harvest their fresh pepper, which is mostly on first come-first-served and “whom you know” basis.

Madam Janet Abezanabiisi, 37, who is one of the farm hands said she and her colleagues’ trouped to the farms daily from Pungu, Kayoro, Gia, Navrongo and its environs and sometimes for two days without getting the opportunity to harvest.

She noted that for the two trips, she made with some of her colleagues to the farms, they could not pay the GH¢2 fare for tricycle services they hired.

According to her, a day’s work on the farms for harvest of fresh pepper attracted GHC 15.00, after which they were able to clean some of the vegetables for use at home.

She said income received after a day’s job was spent in caring for their children at home and for pressing needs adding that even though some of the women were doing petty trading at home, it was not sustainable because the needs of their children depended on it.

In response to why they were not accessing the numerous interventions, government was providing to improve their socio- economic lives, Madam Victoria Ageyeri acknowledged the PFJ programme as good and confirmed that they were unable to access land to undertake dry season farming. 

Madam Ageyeri lauded the fertilizer subsidy among others and called on government to help women to overcome challenges in accessing lands in their communities for farming.