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Edith Wheatland, providing livelihood for women, children in rural areas
Ms Edith Wheatland
Edith Akorsah Wheatland, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Rockland Farms Limited, one of the most established poultry companies in Ghana, has gained popularity over the years for her support to women, children and the less privileged in rural communities.
Ms Wheatland is also a youth empowerment advocate and passionate about initiatives geared towards supporting persons with disabilities.
Ms Edith Wheatland is committed to taking concrete steps through her livelihood programmes to ensure that rural children have access to good nutrition in school.
The journey towards creating a successful business through which she carries out her Corporate Social Responsibilities (CSR) and philanthropic activities started in 2013 when Ms Wheatland decided to relocate to Ghana after several years in the United States where she worked with her uncle.
Ms Wheatland was moved to bridge the gap in the poultry industry where a minimal percentage of women owned poultry farms though they contributed largely to the labour force.
She then decided to quit the job in the US, relocate to Ghana and invest her savings from working abroad to set up a poultry farm with 8000 birds in the Ashanti Region to provide jobs for women and also become a force in the poultry industry.
The farm over the years had developed into an established business which can boast of a 100,000 capacity poultry farm with over 200,000 birds per cycle, a processing facility and commercial feed milling companies. The company have over 100 workers.
The newest product line from Rockland Farms, Akoko Tasty, is currently Ghana’s most popular packaged, locally produced, pre-cut chicken.
In keeping women and youth at the centre of her business, Edith supports over 6,000 smallholder farmers, with over 90 percent of them being women and youth.
She drew inspiration from the Sustainable Development Goals Five, Gender Equality and Women Empowerment to employ more women.
Ms Wheatland takes pride in the fact that, through her efforts, women had been engaged in the poultry business to reduce the male dominance.
These farmers receive inputs, technical support, equipment and seed money to mobilise savings and lending among themselves in order to profitably cultivate maize, as well as improve their livelihoods. Rockland Farms provides training and other support to 7,500 maize outgrowers (two acres average) who supply maize to feed the farm.
Rockland Farms supports children’s nutrition in schools in the Ashanti Region with farm supplies of over 240 free crates of eggs to 10 schools in Sekyere Kumawu and Sekyere Central districts from which over 6000 children benefit every month.
Edith Wheatland is Ghana’s current National Best Female Farmer. She is also a co-awardee of the Feed the Future Accelerating Women Entrepreneurs (AWE) Prize for promising business ventures in 2018.
She also won the African Agribusiness Woman of the Year at the 2023 African Women in Agribusiness Awards.
The poultry business though, had not been without challenges such as accessing wheat brands to process poultry feed.
Accessing working capital has also been a major challenge especially for women in the poultry sector.
Ms Wheatland has called on the government to invest into the local poultry industry to provide jobs for women to take care of their children.
Raised by a single mother and the difficulties she faced, Ms Wheatland is always empathetic about women and working towards providing the source of livelihood for women to care for their children without stress.
Going forward, she is optimistic of a great future where more women would be involved in the poultry industry and contribute to sustaining their families and the country at large.
By Michael D. Abayateye