Consumers want the assurance of safety and quality at every stage of the food production process. Consequently, women in the field of agro-processing and production need to stay abreast of the latest developments and techniques to enhance the safety and quality of their products. The African Women’s Development Fund’s Health and Safety Technical Support Project aims to provide food and health safety technical support to 11 small – medium sized women’s rights organisations in Ghana engaged in food production and processing activities.
This training programme offers useful and practical help to women food producers and processors to ensure a safe and healthy environment at work, in line with the International Labour Organization’s Safe Work mandate, which aims to create worldwide awareness of the dimensions and consequences of work-related accidents, injuries and diseases.
The programme outlines specific technical issues and general hygienic practices necessary for the production of healthy and safe food for consumption. These include the use of face masks, gloves, hair nets/head ties that participants were unfamiliar with or had taken for granted.
For women’s groups cultivating raw materials for processing, this training will emphasise good agricultural practices from pre to post harvest to ensure the use of wholesome crops for processing of the various foods. Recommendations are then made on how to improve safety around their work areas.
The training programme also covers packaging and labeling with hands-on demonstrations to impress the need to invest in appealing packaging and labeling, to increase visibility.
Between 2009-2012 AWDF supported over 200 women groups and organisations working in the areas of agriculture, food production and processing in East and West Africa through grants and technical supports. These small-to-medium-sized women’s groups from Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Uganda, came from the fishing, gari (cassava) processing, bread making, confectionery, shea-butter production, catering services and milk processing industries.
It is hoped that this training programme will lead to an increase in production and income levels of the women and strengthen their ability to provide and access basic needs in their communities such as food, health, education, shelter as well as their ability to participate in decision making processes.
Presently, 56 women from 8 organisations in the Eastern, Northern and Volta regions of Ghana have been trained on health and safety measures in gari, shea-butter and rice production. 45 other women from three organisations in the Western and Ashanti regions will receive similar trainings before June 2015.