Ensuring sustainable farming, improved livelihoods: LEAN project supports 60 communities in Bono East, Ashanti 

Over the years, farmers, particularly smallholder farmers in the transitional zone of the country, have relied solely on farming, without any alternative livelihoods.

The situation puts pressure on their income, especially when they have low yields or lose their farm produce to bushfires.

Bushfire is one of the major problems that keep frustrating farmers and the Forestry Commission in the area.

Special programmes 

However, their frustrations in the last four years have been reduced dramatically, after two environmental protection non-governmental organisations (NGOs) rolled out special programmes to boost their income and stop bushfires.

The organisations, which implemented a four-year project dubbed: "Landscapes and Environmental Agility Across the Nation (LEAN)" are EcoCare Ghana and Tropenbos Ghana.

The project targeted smallholder farmers and marginalised community members in savannah, high forest and the transitional areas, with the aim of improving their livelihoods and conserving bio-diversity.

Under the project, the NGOs built the capacity of the beneficiary farmers on sustainable management decisions, strategies to expand their businesses and finances as well as adding value to savings.

The farmers were trained and equipped to venture into other livelihood initiatives such as livestock businesses, bee keeping, snail and grasscutter rearing and other sources of alternative livelihoods.

Additionally, governance structures were set up by the implementers to foster natural resources conservation, forest management and climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies.

600,000 seedlings 

Under the project, the implementers raised and distributed more than 600,000 seedlings for 60 farming communities in the transition landscape areas to be planted to conserve the forest.

The implementation of the project has significantly reduced the indiscriminate felling of trees, charcoal burning and bush burning in the project implementing areas.

This came to light when a consortium of the LEAN implementers from the World Vision, Rainforest Alliance, EcoCare Ghana and Tropenbos Ghana, visited the beneficiaries to assess the impact of the LEAN project on their lives and communities.

The consortium visited communities such as Darso, Bonsua and Kyebi in the Ofinso North Municipality in the Ashanti Region; Asueyi and Mesidan in the Techiman North District, as well as Kokrompe and Busunya in the Nkoranza North District in the Bono East Region, to interact with the beneficiaries.

The project has benefited thousands of farmers in 60 major farming communities.

Beneficiaries 

During a visit to the communities, the farmers commended the organisations and their sponsor, the European Union, for rolling out the special programmes to boost their income.

At Bonsua, a beneficiary, Osei Kwadwo, who benefited from the tree planting initiative, told journalists that he received and planted over 6,000 trees on his 450-acre pawpaw farm.

He explained that the organisations took care of the farm, stating that the initiative had brought a big relief to him, particularly his finances.

"As a beneficiary of the LEAN Project, I am able to reserve my resources to work on other things because the project has aided me to take care of my farm," he said.

Mr Kwadwo expressed the hope that his life and that of his family would change when the trees matured in the next few years.

Kyebi

The consortium also interacted with a group of 25 farmers who have formed the Village Savings and Loans Association (VSLA) at Kyebi.

The initiative, being driven by the Women Integrated Development Organisation (WIDO), is part of the interventions implemented by the NGOs under the LEAN project to provide women with livelihoods.

They said the association was formed in line with a training they received from EcoCare to support marginalised farmers to get access to interest-free loans. 

They said the initiative had helped them to mobilise funds to support themselves financially and expanded their farming activities.

"We have hope that we can save more for our future and venture into other investments," a member of the VSLA, Ernest Kwaku Wiafe, said.

Another member, Christiana Acquah, who is a single mother of six, told the visiting team that the savings had helped them to expand their farming activities and other businesses. 

She said she was also relying on the savings to take care of the needs of the family.

Rescue

The Ashanti and Bono East Regional Forestry Commission said the forest restoration initiative rolled out by the organisations had helped to restore the vast depleted forest reserves in the areas.

The Bono East Regional Manager of the Forestry Commission, Dickson Adjei Sakyi, described the EU-LEAN project as a rescuer to forest reserves in the areas.

He said the initiative was complementing the efforts of the government in managing and protecting the forest and natural resources. 

The WIDO representative for the LEAN project, Silas Kalio, said he was elated to have realised their efforts had yielded results.

"Women are usually faced with challenges of getting access to loans, so we came out with this idea to set a common goal for them, where they can easily access the loans without going through difficulties," he said.

He said they trained the groups on how to do their own savings and have a means to access soft loans to expand and venture into their own business.

Mr Kalio commended the EU and appealed to them to continue the project.

Writer's email: biiya.ali@graphic.com.gh