Forty cashew farmers in the Jaman North District of the Bono Region have undergone training to shape their advocacy and negotiation skills for fair and better pricing for economic crops.
Participants comprising the leaders and some members of the Bono Cashew Farmers’ Cooperative Union were empowered to effectively engage policy actors, negotiate fair prices, and influence decisions making in the cashew value chain.
Held at Sampa, the District capital, the day’s training was in line with the implementation of the phase two of the ‘Amplifying the Voices of Cashew Farmers Project’ being implemented by the Cashew Watch Ghana (CWG), a Non-governmental organisation with funding from the STAR-Ghana Foundation.
It was also attended by some women leaders and District Directors of Agriculture drawn from cashew producing districts in the region. Speaking in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) on the sidelines of the training, Mr Raphael Godlove Ahenu, the National Coordinator of CWG, highlighted the need to empower the farmers to advocate their rights and secure better market conditions.
He explained that the phase of the project sought to deepen citizen participation, empower farmer groups, and strengthen local advocacy on cashew sector governance. The STAR-Ghana Foundation provided strategic funding support as part of its mission to promote active citizenship and inclusive development.
Mr Ahenu said the CWG was expected to roll out additional community engagements, policy dialogues, and media advocacy activities under the project implementation.He said many cashew farmers in the region continued facing challenges from unstable prices, limited access to market information to weak bargaining power, saying the project implementation sought to tackle those pressing issues and to better the socio-economic livelihoods of the farmers.
So, the training sought to equip the participants with the required skills for them to also participate in influencing policy directions and also negotiate more favourable terms for their members.
Mr Ahenu said: “Strengthening the voice of farmers remains essential for building a more transparent and fairer cashew sector”.
The participants were taken through modules like understanding advocacy, strategic communication, stakeholder engagement, policy analysis, and practical negotiation techniques, with interaction sessions exposing them to role play, simulation exercise and group discussion tailored to the realities of smallholder farmers.
Some of the participants who spoke in an open forum described the training as timely, transformative, and insightful, shaping their advocacy skills to engage effectively with buyers, aggregators, and policy actors with confidence.
