CHALLENGES WOMEN IN AGRICULTURE FACE IN ACCESSING AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION SERVICES IN THE SISSALA EAST AND WEST DISTRICTS OF THE UPPER WEST REGION OF GHANA

Abstract

Effective and timely provision of extension services has proven to precede agricultural productivity both at the national level and the household or individual level among the highly industrialized and developing nations. Even though the benefits from these services cannot be underestimated, there are still numerous challenges people in agricultural industry face in accessing these services. It has also been noted that there are variations in the level of access among the various gender groups. The study therefore sought to examine the challenges women in agriculture face in their efforts to access agricultural extension services with particular emphasis on the women farmers in the Sissala West and East districts in the Upper West Region of Ghana. TUDRIDEP-Tumu (NGO), an agricultural extension service provider operating in the region was used as a case study. One hundred and twenty (120) women were randomly sampled from the two districts and cross tabulation analysis was used to analyze the data. The analysis of the survey data showed that TUDRIDEP- Tumu provide women farmers in the study area with a wide range of extension services. However, not all the women have access to all these services. The extension services are provided to farmers through training workshops, on-farm visits, radio discussions, demonstrations and field days, on-farm training, exchange visits, farmer -to - farmer visit and audio visual. Also, majority of the extension services are provided through training workshops. But the women noted that, of all the strategies employed by TUDRIDEP-Tumu to provide services to them, on-farm visit was the most effective, followed by demonstrations and field days, on-farm training and exchange visits. The study found that men have more access to the extension services than women. It implied that increase women access to extension services and control over productive resources in the two districts would improve women farmers' adoption of extension services for improve yields.