Katharina Münster

Katharina supports the Communication and Digital Innovation agenda of iBAN. Prior to joining iBAN, she gained working experience in development cooperation, public communications, and academia. Among others, she worked as a student assistant for the Asia-Pacific Research and Advice Network, drafted country reports for the Myanmar Representative Office of the Konrad-Adenauer-Foundation, and supported public outreach activities of the GIZ Programme for Sustainable Agricultural Supply Chains and Standards. Katharina holds a master’s degree in International Relations from the Free University of Berlin, the Humboldt University of Berlin, and Potsdam University. In addition, she studied abroad at Sciences Po Lyon and the University of Reading, UK.

Day 3: Rain at night, farmer's delight

Ghana

To farmers’ delight, it rained heavily last night. They normally sow in June but the drought made it impossible since no irrigation exists. Already half-way into July and it's now getting critical to get seeds in the ground. It is proving hard for us to meet farmers' organisations - they are now busy in the fields and not finished doing that, as planned. We nevertheless meet two organisations and get a chance to look at their operations.


Masara N’arziki (Hausa phrase for ‘maize for prosperity’) is a famer cooperative initiated by the Dutch-owned input provider, Wienco, and and has spent four years working with maize farmers in northern and western Ghana. Despite increases in maize production over the past ten years, Ghana still has a supply deficit and needs to import maize. Results from this agricultural programme among smallholder farmers are impressive; the average output of maize farmers in Ghana is 1.5-1.9 ton/hectare, but farmers of the Masara cooperative get yields of 6-7 ton/hectare. The organisation has been trialling and experimenting with the services they offer farmers and now seem to find the right mix of financial credits (made possible through their collective bargaining power), inputs from Wienco, training, and at the end, a guaranteed price and purchase agreement.

"A lot of other programmers offer credits and training, but do not insist on getting the re-payment. So this attitude of getting things for free pretty much is a challenge for us since everything we provide is charged for", explains Luuk Smits, General Manager at Masara.

More and more women farmers are joining. Last year only 5% of the cooperative were women. There are now more than 15%. "The women are getting better yields because they need to feed their families and take the farming seriously. They are also better at repayments", Luuk Smits tells us.
We visit their warehouse in Tamale. I hear small beetles running in between the thousands of maize bags stacked up in Masara's warehouse. White and yellow corn from last season.

This is the third blog in IAP's new travel journal series, in which team members Ruth Brannvall and Mårten Genfors share insights, blogs and lessons learned from visiting inclusive businesses in Ghana, Kenya and Zambia.

 

Ghana
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