Climate-Smart Farming Gives Women in Sunyani New Economic Power

When women control what they grow and how they sell it, entire families thrive. Across the Bono Region, unpredictable rains and degraded soil have made subsistence farming an increasingly precarious way to feed a family. Our climate-smart agriculture program is reshaping that reality — one cooperative at a time.

Farming in a Changing Climate

Rainfall in the Bono Region has grown harder to predict year over year, shortening growing seasons and putting smallholder farmers — most of them women — at constant risk. Our training equips cooperative members with water-harvesting techniques, improved seed varieties, and soil management practices suited to a changing climate, extending growing seasons and protecting yields.

The Cooperative Model

Rather than working in isolation, women farmers join cooperatives that provide governance training, shared access to equipment, collective bargaining power at market, and peer accountability structures that keep members supported and on track.

Microfinance Access

Through partnerships with local financial institutions, cooperative members gain access to small, flexible loans with fair terms — often the first formal credit any of these women have ever held. Financial literacy training, loan application support, business planning guidance, and savings group facilitation all come with it.

Fatima's Journey

Fatima joined one of our women's cooperatives in Sunyani with a small plot of land and a determination to feed her four children without depending on seasonal rains. After completing our climate-smart farming training, she adopted water-harvesting techniques that extended her growing season by six weeks. With her first microfinance loan, she purchased improved seed varieties and a hand pump for irrigation — and doubled her yield in her first full season. She has since repaid her loan in full, hired two neighbours, and expanded into selling processed cassava products at the local market.

"The cooperative gave me more than a loan — it gave me a network, a voice, and a business. My children will never go hungry again because of what I learned."

A Growing Network of Cooperatives

Today, more than 42 active cooperatives and over 1,200 women trained are part of this network, with a loan repayment rate above 85% and an average yield increase of 60% among participating farmers. Every new cooperative that forms is one more circle of women building economic independence together.