Euphemia Produces 6 Bags of Peanuts with SHI Loans

By Bernice Agyekwena, Communications Manager

Euphemia, a 44-year old widow living at Ul-Kpong in the Upper West Region of Ghana took to farming to enable her to produce enough food to feed her household, which includes five children.

However, the high cost of inputs for farming made her life as a farmer difficult since most of the needed inputs were beyond her reach due to her inability to purchase them. 

“I am a widow with a lot of children to cater for.  I used to struggle a lot to get adequate funds to acquire the requisite inputs to farm.”

Hence, when Euphemia learned that Self-Help International (SHI) has established a Microcredit Scheme in her community to assist women farmers with loans to farm, she quickly joined one of the farming groups in order to access the loans.

Consequently, Euphemia was able to access a loan of 500 Ghana Cedis ($35 USD) from SHI to enable her to buy inputs for her farm.  The farming season was interspaced with periods of dry spells that affected her crops. However, in spite of this, her yield was beyond her expectation.

“I was able to harvest six bags of peanuts from my farm, in spite of the dry spells. I sold three bags to pay off my loans. I will sell the remaining bags later on to make money to cater for my family.”

Apart from peanuts, Euphemia also cultivated bambara beans, rice, maize, and cowpea with the help of the loan to enable her to put food on the table for her household. During the long dry season characteristic of the Upper West Region, she also engages in petty trading.

Euphemia said acquiring a loan from SHI has been of immense benefit to her and urged the organization to extend the loan to more women in her community to enable them to reap the same benefits.

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