CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION
Background
Women have played critical roles in agriculture over the years and have formed the majority of smallholder farmers in some jurisdictions (FAO, 2011). Women in agriculture are mostly found in the lower nodes of the value chain characterized by lower gains (UN Women et al., 2011).
According to IFAD (2009) and Rhebergen et al., (2011), the greater proportion of the world’s poor and vulnerable dwell in developing countries and most of them are women who live in rural areas where their dominant occupation is farming. Many face challenges in churning their labour force into the higher nodes of the value chain which provide employment activities with higher returns (FAO, 2012). Although Ghana has made tremendous strides in reducing poverty, a significant number of women, rural women in particular, still lack decent work opportunities (FAO, 2012).
Women in Sub-Saharan Africa form the majority of the labour force but lack access to land and have little access to market due to cultural isolation (Meinzen-Dick et al., 2011; Farnworth, 2011). Women also lack the power to exert influence over income in the face of increasing commercial importance of particular commodities (Fischer and Qaim, 2012).
If land, which forms an important asset of collateral for credit, is lacking then there is a greater risk of women not having the capacity to produce enough to sustain household food
security (UN Women and RDI, 2013). According to ODI (2009), increase in food production will require long term ecological sustenance of soil and water resources.
Access to food in the tree crop growing zones in Ghana is gradually becoming threatened due to the problem of improper allocation of arable lands to plantation farming with cocoa and oil palm, rubber and currently to mining. Addressing food insecurity in these areas will require a concerted effort that tackles industrial crops with food crop production and strict mining regulations.
The food crisis in 2007 and 2008 in post agricultural liberalization lays bare the facts that policies engaged by countries have failed to translate into meaningful poverty reduction (QUNO, 2014).
Security of food needs to be guaranteed alongside growth which embraces major strategies that highlight the concentration of commodities which are both sold and consumed.
The government of Ghana in 2003 sought to accelerate economic growth and poverty reduction by supporting cottage industries to create wealth (GPRS II, 2007). Palm oil was identified as Ghana’s next major export commodity that can be facilitated through small- scale agro-processing of fresh fruit bunches (FFB) into Crude Palm Oil (CPO) for export (Adjei-Nsiah et al., 2012). The government realized the need to modernize, promote and use local materials such as oil palm, maize, sorghum and other commercially feasible export and domestic market-focused enterprises in the rural areas for economic transformation.
The palm tree, whose fleshy fruits are extracted for the crude palm oil (CPO), is cultivated in the undisturbed wooded (forest) belt of Ghana where the annual precipitation is above 1200mm per annum with bimodal distribution (Ofosu-Budu and Sarpong, 2013). The most
suitable areas for cultivation include the Western, Central and Eastern regions of Ghana. However, the crop can be cultivated in other regions such as Ashanti, Brong Ahafo, and, Volta regions Poku (1998), (Rhebergen et al., 2014). Ghana has four large Oil palm estates across the three most dominant growing areas of the Western, Central and Eastern regions (Ofosu-Budu and Sarpong, 2013).
Oil palm is commercially cultivated in over 28 countries worldwide (IndexMundi, 2016). Amongst the major oilseeds of the world, Oil palm accounts for a little over 5% of the world’s land for cultivation. However, this figure produces and accounts for over 30% of the world’s oils and fats products. Malaysia and Indonesia alone yield about 85% of the global CPO with Ghana in the 9th position, producing about 520,000MT of Palm oil per annum (Oil World, 2013).
Palm Oil has become Ghana’s second most important traded good by economic importance next to cocoa in the tree crop sub-sector of Ghana’s agriculture (Danyo, 2013). Palm oil is commercially produced in all the forest zones of the Eastern region made up of districts such as Akyemansa, Birim North and South, Kwaebibirem, Denkyembour, West and East Akyem, Atiwa, Ayensuano, and other districts of the region.
Palm oil has the potential of overtaking Cocoa, due to low risk in its cultivation and also because it has a longer harvesting season as compared to Cocoa which has a high risk of disease infestation and higher susceptibility to weather fluctuations (Danyo, 2013). Oil palm and its main derivative product palm oil, is the best versatile vegetable oil globally owing to its numerous uses in food and for industrial purposes. The Palm oil industry has the Palm kernel oil and pressed fibre industries as accompanying industries in its production process.
Palm oil has several health benefits which include, boosting of hormone balance and alleviating strain on the cardiovascular system. Palm oil prevents cancer due to the presence of tocopherols and also aids in improving energy intensities in the body, limits risk of muscular deterioration and cataracts and prevents vitamin deficiency in women and children (Mukherjee and Mitra, 2009).
Ghana’s palm oil received a boost when the oil palm sector initiated the out grower project schemes for the development and expansion of seed nut production to about 5 million seed nuts per year. There was also the cultivation of over 20,000 hectares of small-scale farms (Fold and Whitfield, 2012). The support was intended to increase the supply of oil palm and hence boost the production of palm oil annually to take advantage of Ghana’s and West Africa’s unmet demand of 350,000 and 850,000 MT respectively (Angelucci, 2013; Rhebergen et al., 2016). Moreover, there is an opportunity for increased palm oil production in Akyemansa and Birim Central Municipality and the region as a whole by area expansion of oil palm. This laudable intervention however, needs pragmatic efforts aimed at reducing rural poverty and increasing employment. It also has the opportunity of moving the rural vulnerable from participating in the lower nodes of the value chain to a higher node with higher profit.
Problem Statement
Like most districts in Ghana, agriculture serves as the main economic activity of the people in the Akyemansa District and Birim Central Municipality. Information gathered from the GSS (2010) Population and Housing Census indicates that 73.5% of the working population in the Akyemansa district and 57.6% in the Birim Central Municipality engage in diverse agricultural activities. These include tree crop farming (Cocoa, Oil palm, Citrus and Rubber),
staple crop farming (Plantain, Cocoyam, Cassava, Maize, Rice), Palm oil and Palm kernel oil processing, vegetable farming and livestock rearing, including aquaculture, as a source of livelihood. One major livelihood in the two districts is the Palm oil industry which has also led to the establishment of two Palm kernel processing factories in the Akyemansa District. This palm oil industry employs a substantial number of the working population in the districts. Located in every community of the districts is a Palm oil processing facility for milling and extracting oil.
Palm oil processing is a highly stratified activity with distinct roles and responsibilities for both men and women. The industry provides livelihood for a large number of actors, in the forest belt particularly women in the Akyemansa District and Birim Central Municipality. Women play meaningful roles in the value chain but are faced with enormous barriers which tend to limit their active participation to the lower end of the value chain (Mutua et al., 2014). Cultural seclusion is one of the major factors that has limited women’s access to markets (Farnworth, 2011; Mutua et al., 2014). Some cultural norms have placed burdens on income control by women with increase in commercial farming and trade (von Braun et al., 1989). Another limitation to women’s ability to play their roles to the maximum in the chain is access to technologies (FAO, 2011). Though the majority of the population found in agriculture are women, they lack the basic rights to own land thereby limiting their roles to taking care of commodities owned by the men. In the absence of ownership, women engage in less paid ventures (FAO, 2011). Some of the crucial and complex livelihood coping strategies of women are caring for animals, processing of crops and food preparations, working for less paid or non-paid agricultural or other menial enterprises, collecting fuel
wood, and drawing of water, which are not counted as economically active employment in national accounts (FAO, 2011).
FAO (2011) alluded to the fact that women’s participation in rural labour markets exceed that of their male counterparts but invariably they are overrepresented in unpaid, seasonal part time work. They are also often paid less than their male counterparts. In the export zones of Kenya, Mexico and Nicaragua for instance women employees work at the poorer section of the value chains and hence earn smaller rents (Gammage, 2009).
The promotion of growth in smallholder agriculture in developing countries will necessitate significant assimilation of small-scale operating businesses (Delgado and Siamwalla, 1997).
Vertical assimilation however, has challenges in excluding large proportions of farmers, particularly smallholder farmers (Arndt et al., 2005). Vorley and Fox (2004) alluded to the fact that incorporation of smallholders to buyer-driven worldwide food chains can result in exorbitant transportation cost. These associated overheads with either production or marketing of high quality products exclude the have-nots from active participation in development opportunities (Delgado, 1999).
Adopting and developing value chain strategies however, will provide opportunities for achieving competitiveness in the domestic and international markets. Engaging in a value chain alone does not necessarily move women to higher nodes of the value chain or erase social exclusion of women. However, corrective mechanisms of the chain will help increase the income of all participants along the chain, create adequate employment in the rural economy and thereby improve the livelihoods of the people particularly in areas where agricultural products are produced.
The Value chain is the series of activities requisite in bringing merchandise or services from start, over the different production processes, supply to the final consumer and discarding after usage (Kaplinsky and Morris, 2000). As a business model the chain tries to establish the value of the product at all stages of the production, processing and delivery. For effective and efficient generation of value and reliable distribution to be attained, participants along the chain are required to coordinate their activities with precision.
Conceptual Framework
The study utilised input –process –output framework to develop a set of indicators to inform the development of policies and functions to ensure effective role play of actors in economic activities. Figure 1.1 presents a schematic framework which elucidate the pathways by which women actors in oil palm industry who exert less power in roles in the production, processing and distribution channels is expected to be intervened by actively playing significant roles to ensure the realisation of higher economic rents.
