House of Liberation for Empowerment (HOLIFE) has held a sensitization workshop on land tenure and ownership for women in agriculture in the Upper West Region.

The one day workshop which was attended by Queen mothers in the region and leaders in the agricultural sector centred on findings from a research conducted on rural women in agriculture with the view to helping them secure lands for farming over a long period of time.

In an interaction with Joy News, Mrs. Evelyn Debar, Director for HOLIFE said the workshop was very necessary and vital to the survival of women who currently depend on agricultural activities to feed their families.

She said HOLIFE supports rural women in the region with micro credit facilities to farm but added that they lose the farmlands annually to their respective owners thereby creating the problem of reinvesting to acquire new arable lands.

The Director added that most of the women depend on farming for their livelihood though they had other ancillary things doing while over 80 percent of them lose or beg for their land for farming.

“They are unable to invest freely on the land hence they have low yields and [low] income, inadequate food and other basic needs are also not met.”

“To solve the problem we engaged BUSAC to embark on a research to reveal the hardships our rural women face in order to draft an effective solution.

From the research, 70 percent of our women are farmers and we believe that if women are given the chance to farm they will be alleviated from poverty not just within the family level but at the national level also’’, she explained.

Mrs. Debar also used the occasion to appeal to landowners, traditional authorities and all government agencies in the agricultural sector to help women in securing farmlands in order to improve their livelihood.