CARE Ghana, through its PROSPER III project with funding from Cargill, has handed over Agro-processing equipment to women producer groups in five cocoa-growing communities across the Ashanti and Central Regions.

The handover event, held at Kufuor Camp in the Atwima Mponua District on June 17, 2025, reflected CARE’s commitment to empowering rural women and improving food security through inclusive market access and access to productive resources.

The equipment distributed included three rice threshers, ten tarpaulins, five weighing scales and three motorized tricycles to support the rice-processing in 3 communities - Kufuor Camp, Pasoro and KD Sreso - at the Atwima Mponua District. An earlier handover event held on 29th and 30th April involved cassava processing machines and tricycles for women gari processing groups at Tonkoase and Ayibo in the Adansi South and Assin South, respectively.

This equipment support follows a recent market assessment by PROSPER III, which highlighted the lack of modern tools as a key barrier to growth and income diversification in local commodity value chains, particularly the rice and cassava value chain.

Present at the event were the Cargill Sustainability Operations Manager, Samuel Apana, Cargill Sustainability Coordinator, Joshua Quansah, Ashanti Regional Director for Ministry of Food and Agriculture - MoFA, Mr. Godfrey Appiah Acheampong, Atwima Mponua District Coordinating Director, Mr. Samuel K Gyan, CARE Ghana Head of Programs, Zakaria Yakubu, Programme team leader, Mercy Sika Krow, traditional leaders, women producer groups and community members.

Speaking at the event, the Cargill Sustainability Operations Manager, Samuel Apana, highlighted the importance of empowering the woman in the family. He said, “this event is a very important one as Cargill believes that empowering women is one of the effective ways to ensure more financial security for family expenses, provide women the voice for decision making in their homes.”

Zakaria Yakubu, CARE Ghana’s Head of Programs in his remarks urged the women strengthen their cooperatives, “I will encourage you to form stronger cooperatives that are good representatives of farmers to engage better with government agencies and other organizations.” He added that the equipment is one of the ways to increase their productivity and strengthen their producer groups.

Mr. Godfrey Appiah Acheampong, the Ashanti Regional Director of MoFA encouraged the women to adopt a good maintenance culture. He stated, I will encouraged the women to practice good maintenance and to sustain the machines provided.

With the provision of these Agro-processing tools, women in these communities are now better positioned to increase productivity and improve incomes