Guzakuza in collaboration with Ignite has hosted the second edition of Women in Agribusiness Awards, themed ‘Revitalising Partnership for Sustainable Agribusiness Development’.
The Women in Agribusiness (WiA) Awards recognise talents, reward resilience and growth, as well as provide support through mentorships and market linkages which enable women to thrive in agribusiness.
It seeks to highlight the achievements of exceptional women in the agribusiness ecosystem who have risen above the odds and limits to lead the way for others to emulate, and also look to for solutions that have not only improved the company landscape but also helped achieve business success.
Speaking to the media, Programmes Coordinator for Women in Agribusiness Week, Akosua Duah, stated that the rationale for the Women in Agribusiness (WiA) Awards is to celebrate women in agribusiness.
“The main aim is to celebrate women in agribusiness. We believe they are doing wondrous things and we need to appreciate it. We need to let the world know what our people are doing. We need to celebrate the new innovations they are bringing on board, so that is why we had this programme,” she said.
She added that the award scheme has widened its scope to other part of Africa – including Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Ethiopia – to celebrate, appreciate and encourage women in the agribusiness industry.
“Last year, we started with 5 and this year we had 31 awardees. The reason for this increment is because we realised we had women doing a lot of things along the agribusiness value chain, and so we had to diversify and increase the number,” she stated.
The keynote speaker was the Chairperson of Agribusiness at the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI), Fatima Alimohamed, who mentioned that even though the country is endowed with all the natural resources to enable planting and production of food to feed the growing population, it still depends on imports.
“I have been in Ghana for 12 years, and what hurts me is to see that we continue to remain an import-based country. We have land, we have sea, we have water, but we have so many excuses about why we can’t feed our population. A lot of times as Africans we tend to blame others for our problems, but our problems are our own,” she bemoaned.
Ms. Fatima Alimohamed added that women in agribusiness should be corporative, form partnerships and work together for sustainable development.
“With each one of us sitting here, there is somebody who is strong in marketing, somebody is strong in processing, somebody is strong in farming and somebody is also strong in fertilising. If we just work together, there is so much that we can do,” she said.
The awards night was climaxed the activities organised by Guzakuza to celebrate 2022 Women in Agribusiness Week – which included the Women in Agribusiness Forum, Women in Agribusiness Tour and Women in Agribusiness Expo.
Some of the awards won at the Women in Agribusiness Awards 2022 event were: Best Farmer of the Year, Nomhle Maggie Mliswa, Zimbabwe; Sustainable Agribusiness of the Year, Omotola Monsurat Ishola-Badamasi, Nigeria; AG Innovator of the Year, Lawrencia Safua Kwansah, Ghana; Role Model Excellence Award, Rahel Heruy Gizaw, Ethiopia; Emerging Star in Agribusiness, Vera Osei-Bonsu, Ghana; She-innovator of the Year, Charity Adupong, Ghana; and Agri-Journalist of the Year, Rosemond Akuorkor Adjetey, Ghana.
