Hajara Ibrahim Taimako, is lively and energetic. She has a strong desire for the economic emancipation of women. She is a women’s advocate whose passion for the alleviating of poverty among rural women-farmers is as profound as an abyss. Hajara Ibrahim Taimako, popularly called Borborbor, has founded over 30 women’s groups across northern Ghana that she is helping to be self-sufficient.
Borborbor has a strong character and is persistent in her beliefs and convictions. Her perseverance in the pursuit of women’s rights has sent shivers down the spine of many men.
Born to a father who was a traditional medicine seller and an uneducated mother who was passionate about helping her fellow women, Borborbor was raised in a town called ‘Emlo’ in a house called “Efikesie” translating as “big house” in Kumasi. A frafra by tribe, Boboboo is the third amongst 5 boys and 4 ladies. She stayed in Kumasi for 6 years after which her family moved to settle in Tamale.
Though her mother was uneducated, she wanted her to go to school. She began her education at the Sakasaka School and on weekends, she would go to an Islamic school popularly known as ‘Makaranta’ at Ambariya Islamic School, both in Tamale. She got to middle school form four where she ended and continued to help her mother in her traditional herbal business.
Borborbor  admits it was her mother (still alive) who aroused her interest in the family business of processing traditional herbal medicine, which eventually led to her current business of soybean processing. It only triggered after her father’s death. According to her, her father Mallam Ibrahim Taimako was the first traditional healer to brew medicine in Ghana and sell it  around the country and beyond. She credits the establishment of their selling branches of their traditional medicine in Togo and Burkina to her father’s business voyages across the borders of Ghana.
After his death, her mother saw the need to continue the legacy her husband had left. Being a woman who had some experience in producing traditional herbal medicine from her mother, she saw the need to plant medicinal herbs. Getting some support from the agro forestry department then, she had access to mahogany seedlings and training in how to raise her own seedlings. Borborbor was chosen by her mother to undergo the training, as she was the one who was closely working with her to establish a plant nursery. With training on how to practice grafting and layering of various plants and fruits, she transferred the knowledge into improving her mother’s nursery which is now beginning to take shape. She says this is how she officially became a part of her mother’s business.
To upgrade her skills, her mother with the intervention of the then country director of UNDP, Dr. Quartey, was able to convince the Dean of  Bonsu Agricultural College to allow Borborbor get access to practical training on nursing and raising seedlings.
For three months and two weeks, Bobobor together with a female relative underwent training in the nursing and raising of seedlings. After the training, she came back home to further improve on her mother’s botanical and herbal garden, which they named after her father (Taimako Plants Research Centre). Whilst helping her mother she was also learning how to brew herbal medicine and to treat people. She learnt about some medicinal herbs and methods that could be used to help women during childbirth from her mother’s collaboration with traditional birth attendants. Today, the garden still exists in the compound of their residence in Kanvili.
On a normal day, you can find Aunty Borborbor mixing some herbs from their herbal medicinal garden or training and facilitating the activities of the women at her soybean processing unit just metres away from her home in Kanvili.

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Published in the May 2016 Edition of “The Advocate”
By Khadijah Abdul-SAMED

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While driving in the country side of Northern Ghana, one often sees farmers working under the hot sun. For an average of GHc 3.00 a day, farmers endure the heat, exposure to harmful chemicals and dangerous snakes, all to harvest salvageable produce and to prepare for the next crop. This hard work is also done in the face of climate change defined by increasing temperatures, inconsistent rainfall, soil erosion and degradation.

In her report “Opportunity in Organics”, Lauren Bain comments on the current state of the agriculture sector in Ghana, concluding that the current methods of agro-education being used, essentially a blend of traditional practices such as bush burning and modern practices such as using harmful pesticides and herbicides, are unsustainable. They are also harmful to the environment and not ideal for healthy food production. Although there are many challenges in finding an effective solution, many share her belief that Ghana’s agricultural sector is in dire need of change.

The Coalition for the Advancement of Organic Farming (CAOF) presents an overview of organic farming in Ghana, specifically in the Northern Sector, as a possible alternative to negative agricultural practices that remain prevalent today.

To begin, we need to understand clearly what is meant by organic agriculture. The International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) defines organic agriculture as “. . . a whole system approach based upon a set of processes resulting in a sustainable ecosystem, safe food, good nutrition, animal welfare and social justice. Organic production therefore is more than a system of production that includes or excludes certain inputs.”

Why should farmers consider going organic? According to the report, organic agriculture can increase agricultural productivity while stabilizing returns, as well as incomes, by using local technologies, all without harming the environment. Economically, the local and international market for organic products has significant prospects for growth. This could lead to increased income and improved living conditions for the producers and exporters of organic produce. Other benefits would also include maintenance and building of soil fertility on land that is often threatened by degradation and erosion, as well as putting in place agricultural practices that can contribute to meaningful socio-economic and ecologically sustainable development. In addition to these benefits for the environment and farmers, there are also significant benefits for consumers who buy organic produce.

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everal decades after Ghana’s independence, the Northern Region is still counted as one of the very deprived regions in the country.

Poverty is still endemic and the vagaries of the weather still pose perennial difficulties for the people and their communities.

Literacy statistics are still depressing, especially for women, and youth unemployment is severe, a perceived source of instability and insecurity in many Northern communities.

This has resulted in the youth, especially girls, migrating to the south in search of greener pastures.

In the “Overseas” community of Tantala located in the West Mamprusi District, however, members of the Tuona Paga (Women) Coalition have not resigned themselves to their fate, but have taken their destiny into their own hands to change their lives for the better.

Tuona, in Mampruli, means people living in remote communities or across rivers.

The (Overseas” area has earned its name because it is cut off from civilization during the rainy season when floods occur.

The 50- member Coalition, which is made up of 25 mothers and their 25 daughters, is undertaking an Environment and Alternative Sustainable Livelihood Project, with funding from the Ghana Environmental Management Project (GEMP).

All the 25 daughters had one time or the other migrated down south to work as head porters, popularly known as “Kayayee.”

The objective of GEMP, a CIDA funded project, is to strengthen Ghanaian institutions and rural communities to enable them reverse land degradation and desertification trends in the Northern, Upper East, and Upper West Regions of Ghana, and also to adopt sustainable land and water management systems that improve food security and reduce poverty.

It was on one early Saturday morning two members of the Northern Regional Environmental Management Committee (REMC), including Chief Alhassan I. Amadu, Regional Head of the National Population Council (NPC) and this writer, set off from Tamale to the “Overseas” area, with Mr. Abu Iddrisu, Regional Director of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as our chauffeur.

Our destination was Tantala and our mission, to monitor the activities carried out so far by the Tuona Women’s Coalition, a beneficiary of GEMP funding initiative. The Coalition received a grant of GH¢20,000 from GEMP to implement an Environment and Alternative Sustainable Livelihood Project in the Tantala community.