Wayne Miranda in Ghana

Every day, small-scale farmers in the West African nation of Ghana face a harsh reality: they experience the highest rate of poverty among all the country’s citizens. In fact, in a place where subsistence agriculture is the norm, 60 per cent of food-crop farmers live beneath the poverty line.

The Ghanaian Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) aims to fix the situation. Knowing that a prosperous agricultural sector is vital to eradicating poverty, MoFA promotes agricultural commercialization and empowers farmer groups.

More specifically, MoFA plans, implements, monitors and evaluates agricultural policies to spur Ghana’s economic development. With support from the EWB’s Agriculture as a Business program, MoFA is helping poor farmers go beyond mere survival and set up successful businesses.

The Agriculture as a Business program teaches farmers to manage, assess and record expenses and profits. They also learn to identify their product’s value and how market fluctuations affect their bottom line. Helping to put the program into action is University of Waterloo graduate and EWB volunteer Wayne Miranda.

“This project recognizes that economic growth in Ghana is promising,” he says. “I will partner with MoFA staff to help farmers become members of productive and profitable farmer groups.”

In particular, Wayne is scaling up the Agriculture as Business project in two districts in Ghana, reaching 400 small-scale farmers. “I am thrilled to contribute to ambitious, achievable goals with the potential to make a significant positive impact on the rural community members in Northern Ghana,” he says.

Since the fall of 2008, Wayne has been busy building relationships with local contacts, and he began working alongside MoFA field staff in early 2009. Already he's come across life-changing moments – some of which he has documented in an eye-opening online video.

For example, in late 2008, Wayne spent a week in the village of Wala. There, he worked with local farmers and their children to harvest rice and maize, and weed watermelon fields – all by hand. The work, he admits, was gruelling at times. “The experience also left me motivated to contribute to international development work than ever before.”