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For 38-year-old Leticia Bopaah, learning to operate a tractor was more than the fulfilment of a childhood dream; it offered the prospect of reducing the cost of farming and earning additional income to support her two children.
The smallholder farmer had relied on a hoe and cutlass for years, while hiring a tractor to prepare her land came at a considerable financial cost.
Through an earlier collaboration between FarmYield Ghana and the German development agency GIZ, she received training in tractor operation, opening up the possibility of applying mechanisation on her farm and earning income by providing services to other farmers.
“Today, operating this tractor and using it to farm my land makes me very happy. My childhood dream has always been to operate one of these, and I thank FarmYield Ghana for training me to operate a big tractor,” she said.
Her experience illustrates the opportunities agricultural mechanisation skills can create for women who have traditionally relied on manual labour or paid tractor services to cultivate their farms.
Now, FarmYield Ghana and GIZ are expanding their collaboration through a new initiative expected to support more than 200 women, young people and farmers in Northern Ghana.
The Advancing Growth, Resilience, and Opportunity with Women and Youth (AGROWY) project was launched in Bolgatanga on Monday, October 26, 2026, alongside the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the two organisations.
By 2028, the project aims to equip 40 women with tractor operation skills, support 60 young people to develop farming enterprises and help more than 100 farmers strengthen their businesses.
The initiative is being implemented under the Private Sector and Innovation Promotion in Ghana (PSInno) programme, commissioned by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development and implemented by GIZ in partnership with Ghana’s Ministry of Trade, Agribusiness and Industry.
Three interventions to improve agricultural livelihoods
The project will be implemented through three components targeting mechanisation, agricultural production and business development.
Under the Female Tractor Operator Training component, 40 women will receive practical training in tractor operation, potentially creating opportunities for employment and the provision of mechanisation services to other farmers.
The One Youth One Acre component will support 60 young people with agricultural production, entrepreneurship and market development skills to help them establish and grow farming enterprises.
A further 100 farmers and agribusiness operators will benefit from the Farmer-to-Business Transformation programme, which seeks to strengthen business management, record-keeping, formalisation and access to markets.
Speaking at the launch, FarmYield Ghana Board Chairman Yaw Agyare said the project was designed to ensure that training leads to tangible economic opportunities.
“Our goal is simple: to equip women and young people with the skills, resources and opportunities they need to thrive. We are not here merely to train. We are here to ensure that training translates into employment, higher incomes and lasting businesses,” he said.
Women’s access to mechanisation
Agriculture remains a major source of livelihood in Northern Ghana, but access to mechanisation, financing and reliable markets continues to shape the opportunities available to smallholder farmers.
Figures from the Ghana Statistical Service’s Ghana Living Standards Survey 7, cited in the project’s press release, indicate that 83.2 per cent of households in the Upper East Region and 80.4 per cent in the Upper West Region owned or operated farms.
For women farmers, the opportunity to operate tractors could reduce dependence on hired services and create an additional source of income. However, the benefits will depend on whether trained operators can access machinery, secure employment or establish viable mechanisation businesses.
Head of Programme for GIZ’s Private Sector and Innovation Promotion programme, Arlett Stojanovic, said the initiative builds on earlier collaboration that trained 15 young women in tractor operation, mechanics and drone operation.
She said most of those trained remained employed in commercial agriculture, demonstrating the potential of skills development to create employment opportunities for women.
Ms Stojanovic said the new project would also challenge perceptions about women’s roles in agricultural mechanisation and open pathways into employment and entrepreneurship, including the establishment of farmer service centres.
She called on investors to support women interested in setting up such businesses, noting that access to equipment and investment would be important to sustaining the benefits of the training.
Beyond training
FarmYield Ghana, established in 2016, provides agricultural mechanisation, farm inputs, farmer financing, agronomic training and market access services, particularly to women and young people.
The organisation says it supports more than 2,000 farmers annually, with women accounting for approximately 84.5 per cent of its beneficiaries in 2025. It has also supported the cultivation of close to 10,000 acres of farmland over the past decade and trained 30 women as tractor operators during that period.
Ms Stojanovic said the AGROWY initiative formed part of Germany’s broader development cooperation efforts to strengthen private sector growth, improve business competitiveness and create sustainable employment opportunities in Ghana.
She said the success of the partnership would ultimately be measured by the businesses strengthened, jobs created and improvements in beneficiaries’ livelihoods.
For women such as Ms Bopaah, operating a tractor represents a potential shift towards greater independence in farming and new income opportunities.
Source: Bolgafmonline.com| 102.7 MHz| Bolgatanga
