Located in Wungu, Tinguri, Buakudoo and Janga communities, the intervention formed part of the company’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) to empower the women and make them economically viable.

Additionally, they have been supported with tricycle motors and other logistics to enable them to transport their produce and also link them to the ready market.

The women are expected to parboil the rice they produce from their farms, supply to the factory for processing and par-boil paddy supplied by the factory to feed the plant.

Aside from parboiling paddy rice, the centres are multipurpose and would be used to process shea butter in the off-season to engage the women all year round.

Inaugurating the facilities, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Tamanaa, Shaibu Braimah, indicated that the beneficiaries would also be trained and certified by the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) to enable them to produce standard products for the market.

“Currently, we have about 4,000 outgrowers, out of which 1,500 are females.

We support them with ploughing services, seeds and fertiliser.

“We also give them paddy rice to par-boil and feed our plant because we do processing, we currently process 250 metric tonnes but we don’t use an automated boiler, we are using the women groups to par-boil the rice,” he said.

He indicated that the company decided to engage the services of more women in its activities as part of efforts to improve their income levels and prevent them from travelling to the south to engage in the ‘kaya’ business (head portering).

Alhaji Braimah noted “After they finish processing their produce, we also supply them with our paddy rice for them to process at a fee.

The initiative is being supported by IDH Ghana, Mastercard Foundation and Farmfit.”

For her part, the Supply Chain Specialist of IDH Ghana, Abambire Hilda, advised the beneficiaries to put the facilities to good use to enable them to serve the intended purpose.

She said the intervention would generally improve the living standards of the women and support their family upkeep.

The Assemblyman for Nayiri Fong Electoral Area, Alhassan Kasim, thanked the company and its partners for the gesture and pledged to ensure that the facilities were put to good use.