For 38-year-old Leticia Bopaah, learning to operate a tractor is more than the fulfilment of a childhood dream. It offers hope of reducing her farming costs and earning additional income to support her two children.
The smallholder farmer relies on a hoe and cutlass to cultivate her farmland, while hiring a tractor when she needs mechanised services comes at a considerable financial cost.
But after benefiting from a tractor operator training initiative organised by FarmYield Ghana, she has acquired skills that could enable her to operate agricultural machinery on her own farm and offer mechanisation services to other farmers for additional income.
“Today, operating this tractor and using it to farm my land makes me very happy. My childhood dream has always been to operate one of these, and I thank FarmYield Ghana for training me to operate a big tractor,” she said.
Ms Bopaah was among 15 women who benefited from an earlier tractor operator training initiative undertaken by FarmYield Ghana in partnership with the German development agency GIZ.
Her experience demonstrates the opportunities agricultural mechanisation training can create for women in rural communities, where many smallholder farmers continue to depend on manual tools or expensive tractor-hiring services.
FarmYield Ghana is now seeking to expand these opportunities through a new partnership with GIZ under the Advancing Growth, Resilience, and Opportunity with Women & Youth (AGROWY) Project.
The 24-month initiative will train 40 additional women in tractor operation and agricultural mechanisation, while creating pathways for employment and income generation within the sector.
The training will cover tractor operation, machinery maintenance, troubleshooting, operational safety and service delivery, equipping participants with practical skills to pursue opportunities in agricultural mechanisation.
For women such as Ms Bopaah, acquiring these skills offers the possibility of reducing dependence on hired tractor services while opening up opportunities to earn additional income by providing mechanisation support to other farmers.
Speaking at the ceremonial signing of the AGROWY partnership agreement on October 26, 2026, Board Chairman of FarmYield Ghana, Yaw Agyare, said the initiative was designed to ensure that agricultural training leads to practical economic opportunities.
“We are not here merely to train. We are here to ensure that training translates into employment, higher incomes and lasting businesses,” he said.
The AGROWY Project is being implemented under the Private Sector and Innovation Promotion (PSInno) Programme, commissioned by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and implemented by GIZ in partnership with Ghana’s Ministry of Trade, Agribusiness and Industry (MoTAI).
The partnership seeks to address barriers limiting women’s and young people’s participation in commercial agriculture by expanding access to productive resources, technical skills, employment opportunities and business development support.
Head of Programme for GIZ’s Private Sector and Innovation Promotion Programme, Arlett Stojanovic, said the partnership would contribute to building a more inclusive and commercially sustainable agricultural sector in Northern Ghana.
“Sustainable economic development requires strong collaboration between development partners and the private sector. Through our partnership with FarmYield Ghana, we aim to promote inclusive economic growth, strengthen agribusinesses, and create meaningful employment opportunities for women and young people in Northern Ghana,” she said.
The project has three key components.
The first, the Women Tractor Operator Employment and Skills Programme, will train 40 women in tractor operation and agricultural mechanisation, with support to pursue employment, mentorship and income-generating opportunities within the sector.
The intervention also seeks to challenge traditional perceptions about women’s roles in agricultural mechanisation, a field largely dominated by men.
The second component, One Youth One Acre, will support 60 young people to engage in agricultural production through access to farmland, quality inputs, mechanisation services, practical agronomic training and business development support.
The programme is designed to help young people approach agriculture as a viable business and source of sustainable employment.
Under the third component, the Farmer-to-Business Transformation Programme, more than 100 smallholder farmers will receive support to strengthen their business operations through formalisation, financial management, record keeping, entrepreneurship training and improved access to markets.
Together, the three interventions will connect agricultural production, mechanisation skills, employment and entrepreneurship, with the aim of improving livelihoods and strengthening agricultural value chains across Northern Ghana.
Ms Stojanovic said the partnership reflected German Development Cooperation’s commitment to strengthening Ghana’s private sector and creating sustainable employment opportunities, particularly for women and young people.
The new partnership builds on FarmYield Ghana’s experience in supporting women to acquire agricultural mechanisation skills.
Established in 2016, the organisation provides smallholder farmers, particularly women and young people, with access to mechanisation services, quality farm inputs, farmer financing, agronomic training and market opportunities.
Over the past decade, FarmYield Ghana has supported the cultivation of close to 10,000 acres of farmland and trained 30 women as tractor operators.
Its earlier training programmes have provided women such as Ms Bopaah with opportunities to acquire practical skills in tractor operation and the use of agricultural implements.
In April 2026, Ms Bopaah also participated in a five-day refresher training organised by FarmYield Ghana, which included practical sessions on tractor safety, implement attachment, harrowing, planting, spraying and other machinery operations.
The training strengthened her practical experience and confidence in operating agricultural equipment.
Through AGROWY, FarmYield Ghana and GIZ intend to build on these efforts by placing greater emphasis on connecting technical training to employment, entrepreneurship and sustainable income generation.
Mr Agyare said achieving the project’s objectives would require collaboration, accountability and a commitment to ensuring that beneficiaries could translate their acquired skills into economic opportunities.
He encouraged participants to take advantage of the training and support available through the initiative.
For Ms Bopaah, the experience has already brought her closer to a childhood ambition.
Although access to machinery and employment opportunities will determine how far she can put her skills to use, her training has opened up possibilities that once seemed beyond her reach.
With AGROWY targeting 40 additional women, FarmYield Ghana hopes to extend similar opportunities to more women across Northern Ghana, helping them move from acquiring agricultural skills to building sustainable livelihoods.
A1 Radio | 101.1 Mhz | Moses Apiah | Bolgatanga
