Help Fund Women Farmers in Ghana

Beatrice Duku Frimpong Boaten inherited her house and four acres of land from her father over 30 years ago. After Beatrice retired as a teacher, she decided to convert the land into a cocoa farm. She worked as a farmer for 16 years, and in March 2010, she joined Opportunity International‘s agricultural finance program through Opportunity Ghana. As a result of this program, she has received fertilizers, insecticides and learnt farming techniques that have allowed her to increase her output from an average of five bags every year to 13 to 15 bags by the end of every cocoa season. Her income has also been boosted from the increased yield. But improving her own lifestyle and paying for her children’s education is not the only thing to come out of Beatrice’s relationship with Opportunity International. She felt encouraged enough by Opportunity loan officers to gather community members to form two Trust Groups and collectively they have made a community farm, which grows cocoa, plantains, maize, cassava and other crops for the community. Proceeds from the sale of these crops go into the Trust Group’s funds, which in turn pay back the loans farmers have incurred from Opportunity.

-Taken from a Students of the World (SOW) guest blog post

To read more about Beatrice's success story and Opportunity's work in Agricultural Finance visit http://www.opportunity.org/blog/students-of-the-world-sow-ghanaian-agricultural-finance-client-beatrice-is-a-lady-of-the-land/