As part of its commitment to integrate gender perspective into bamboo and rattan cultivation and its related development interventions, Kumasi-based Bright Generation Community Foundation (BGCF) has collaborated with the International Network for Bamboo and Rattan (INBAR)  and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) to build the capacity of women.

Fifteen males and females selected from Seidi and Koben in the Atwima Nwabiagya District of Ashanti participated in the training programme held at Toase in the same district.

The Executive Director of the BGCF, Bernice Dapaah, told the Daily Graphic that there was the need for unique and indispensable roles in the development and utilisation processing of bamboo.

She noted that although bamboo cultivation was not a major occupation for many farmers, with the introduction of the Ghana bamboo Bikes Initiative and the education on the potential use of bamboo as a raw material substitute for wood charcoal production and briquette making, a lot of interest had been generated by farmers to go into bamboo cultivation.

She expected the beneficiaries to share the knowledge acquired in the bamboo business with many interested farmers who were to be engaged in commercial bamboo plantations and harvesting.

Ms Dapaah said bamboo Bikes initiative sought to create wealth among the rural women empowered to go into bamboo plantation and provide sustainable livelihood jobs skills for them.

She indicated that her organisation would be patronising bamboo seedlings to be planted by the women farmers for the production of bamboo bikes while the surplus would be used for the production of bamboo charcoal and other handicrafts that would be exported to earn the women foreign exchange.

She further indicated that the BGCF would establish two bamboo demonstration nursery sites at Seidi and Koben with different bamboo species which would provide high quality seedlings for the farmers.

She iterated the need for the farmers to plant the bamboo seedlings on the river banks to promote soil conservation and for the purposes of environmental protection.

Resource persons from INBAR and CSIR demonstrated the technique of vegetative propagation of bamboo and educated the participants about various measures to be followed in order to successfully carry out vegetative propagation.

Source: Daily Graphic

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