Ghana Team

The project Transforming poor smallholders into entrepreneurs in sub-Saharan Africa: A pathway for development works with a team of ambitious students and young professionals.

Caroline Carette

I am Caroline Carette, a French student, 23 years old and  I study agronomy at the Montpellier Sup-Agro School of agricultural engineering, in the South of France. I have finished, in August 07, my second year, which is equivalent to the first year of an M.Sc level Sup-Agro is specialized with Agricultural Engineering and Natural Resource Management. I decided to interrupt my study for one year 'of caesura'. My purpose was to gain professional experience before choosing a relevant specialization for my last year study in Montpellier.
(From September to February I carried out a first experience in Benin, where I did a survey on a participatory plant breeding project with Plantain banana.)
Since the end of April I have been in the north of Ghana, in Upper West region to do a research on shea nuts and shea butter (also called karite). I am with two others students; we are living in a family in Kpare, a small village of about 1000 inhabitants where there is no electricity. It is a very good experience.
In Kpare, most of the women and children are involved in nuts collection. They keep the nuts for them to make shea butter for cooking, or sell kernels or butter to buy food or clothes. So shea product represents important subsistence or cash income for the women of this village. My research is particularly focus
on traditional manual process of shea butter extraction (time, resources, quality, productivity..) which is a slow and laborious work done by almost all the women in Kpare.

Bianca van der Kroon

I am Bianca van der Kroon, 23 year old International development studies student specialising in economics. Previously, I worked on microfinance in India and female labour force participation in Turkey, both topics that had a specific focus on women. 
The agricultural sector is the sector were most Ghanaians earn their livelihoods. This sector is mainly based on small-scale farmers of whom a large group farms at a self subsistence level. It is assumed that farming at a subsistence level is in the long run not a viable activity to safeguard a families welfare and food security. That is why many people see the commercialisation of small-scale farmers as the path of development. To commercialise farmers need to be able to participate in markets. Right now many of them are not able to do so, that is why I will take a look at the constraints imposed by the asset endowment of small-scale farmers on the participation in crop sale markets. 

Leonoor Akkermans

am Leonoor Akkermans, I am an specialist in rural sociology.Together with a group of students I will search for the possibilities to change smallholder farmers in Ghana into entrepreneurs. I will look especially at the Ghana School Feeding Programme, an initiative of the Dutch and Ghanaian Government in order to increase school enrolment and short term food security. Through school meals the programme hopes that more children enroll in school and that children will have higher results in school because of better nutrition. The school enrolment increased a lot because of the programme, but the quality of education is questionable because of classes with more children and teachers without proper training. Food for GSFP is according to the glossy brochures all produced locally. However, in practice this is not true. I will find out which efforts have been taken to involve farmers and how to improve their involvement. To o this research I will go to Bonsaaso, a small village between Kumasi and Tamale. This tiny African village thanks its 518 google hits to the fact that it is one of the Millennium Villages; the UN playground where people don’t use their bed nets to fish and where the Millennium Development Goals should be realized in 2015. The proud of Kofi Annan and Jeffrey Sachs. I am very curious! 

Carlijn

My name is Carlijn, I’m studying International Development Studies at the Wageningen University. In my former study, Communication Management, I did one of my internships in Curacao and another one at the head quarter of the Red Cross in The Hague. The internship at the Red Cross was especially a great learning experience and it got me more interested in development issues. For the internship of my current master study I will be joining a research project in Ghana.
I am especially interested in possible social factors which keep the farmers from producing for the market. You could for instance think of the fact that rural poor would maybe rather stick to their everyday practice instead of joining the Locally Grown School Feeding Programme (LGSFP) because they see it as a too risky and uncertain undertaking. Furthermore, relations of trust could be a reason for them not to supply the schools with the ingredients. With relations of trust you could think of distrust in the government, development aid organizations or maybe even fellow farmers.
I am looking forward to visit Africa for the first time and to get a taste of the Ghanaian culture. Furthermore, I look forward to meeting the farmers and to find out how they perceive their life, the LGSFP and development aid in general. If you think of development aid, my thoughts go out to Africa, a continent were so many development projects have been undertaken. Some of them were successful but unfortunately a lot of them also were not. I hope this project will give me more insight in the way you can bring development projects to a success. More specifically I hope to get a better understanding of what the local people would like to get out of development projects.

Mirjam van Leeuwen

My name is Mirjam van Leeuwen, I am 25 years old and I am a MSc student Development Economics at Wageningen university.  One of the main things I am interested in in my field of study is how trade, in a fair and transparent way, can improve the standard of living of poor people in developing countries. I think that trade can be the main solution for the problem of poverty and hunger in developing countries. In 2007 I conducted 4 months of research in Kenya among smallholder coffee farmers which were organized in cooperatives. This was very interesting and now I am curious to find out more about another stakeholder in the chain from smallholder farmers to consumers, namely the international buyers.  
The 4th of July I will go to Ghana for 3 months of research. Tamale, a large town in the Northern Region will be the base town from which I will work. I will do research on the value chain between farmers and consumers, hereby I will focus on the level of the international trade in Shea nuts. The butter derived from these nuts is mainly used in food products and for cosmetic purposes. The international demand for Shea nuts is increasing and I will analyze how the market is working and what the main issues are involved. Amongst other things I would like to find out in which way the smallholder farmers (mainly women) who are picking and processing the nuts can optimally benefit from this increase in international demand.

Max Jonkers

My name is Max Jonkers, currently I’m in my second year of my MSc Management studies. I consider myself a spontaneous enthusiastic guy who enjoys helping people.  This trip to Ghana will be my first experience with Africa and living abroad. I very much interested in the economical and  marketing aspects of the project.  
During my stay in the north of Ghana (close to bolgatang) I will focus on the issue of market access of small entrepreneurs and market salesmen and women. Gaining understanding of the constraints and opportunities the market brings to the farmers.

Mayumi Malotaux

My name is Mayumi Malotaux, I am 23 years old and I study environmental sciences at the University of Utrecht. Last year I completed my bachelor degree in physical geography. During this study I realized that I wanted to do something with natural sciences that had more direct societal application. This brought me to my master, sustainable development, where environmental problems were linked to economical and societal aspects. I think that a combination of all these fields and finding out how they interrelate is crucial in finding solutions for many environmental and societal problems. 
In the beginning of May I will travel to the north of Ghana, to a town close to the border with Burkina Faso. I and two other students will try to find out how a certain nut, called the shea nut, can become a more profitable source of income for the rural farmers.

This shea nut grows naturally in the Sub-Saharan region, and is an interesting source of income for farmers because there is a demand for it on both local and global markets.

We hope this study will provide more insight in the production system and how the product is currently brought to the market. Besides this it will certainly be an adventure to go to Sub-Saharan Africa. The province capital (Wa) has internet café’s, but there’s no electricity in the town we’re going.

Joris van der Kamp

Joris is currently coordinating a mission of 18 students  which is evaluating the Ghana school feeding programe. Joris van der Kamp will graduate in September 2008 as a soil scientist. He worked in Indonesia on soil vegetation/land use relations with a main focus on soil carbon stocks. CV

The film crew: Mink Wouter & Lisa

Mink Pinster (23) and Wouter Verwijlen (23) are third grade students at the audiovisual design department of the academy of arts Breda, The Netherlands. Their studies focus on low-budget independent documentary filmmaking. Lisa Hochstenbach (21) is a fourth grade student at the animation department of the same academy. Wouter and Mink aim to become independent filmmakers, Lisa to become a successful animation artist.
About the project:
The Ghana (film)project from Wageningen provided an outstanding way for Mink and Wouter to spend their period of internship at the end of their third year of study. The large amount of freedom and thus responsibility on such a project demanded their utmost devotion and tested and strengthened both their organizational and filmic skills. For Lisa this project also provided a platform to expand her abilities as an animator in a documentary direction.
With the film that results from this project they hope to change te negative image that a lot of people have about Afrika, i.e. that it's nothing but a misery. They hope to show that the Ghanaian way of life has its positive sides, that their cheerful approach towards life is something people in developed countries can learn a lot from.

Monique van der Wind

My name is Monique van der Wind and I am 26 years old. One of my interests is to travel, which I do whenever I have the chance. In my daily life I like to be active in sports, I live and work in an organic, vegetarian restaurant and I am a student at Wageningen University. There I have achieved my Bachelors in International Development with a minor in Disaster Studies. Currently I am doing my Masters in the same field, with a minor in Tourism Studies and I have chosen 'Communication' as my specialisation. In order to get my degree I have to do a thesis, which I am in Ghana for at the moment. My special topic of interest is farmer groups; more specific, their capacity to identify and meet the problems and needs of small farmers. I am also interested in to idenfity the role and importance of those groups in what the farmer wants to achieve in farming.
Being here in Ghana and living with a local family in a village, really gives me an unforgettable experience of the Ghanaian culture and their friendly people!