Using beauty to entice ladies into agribusiness: Miss Agric enters 6th edition
A FORMER beauty queen, Oheneba Akosua Kyerewaa Yeboah-Ghansah, is using beauty pageant as a tool to entice young ladies into the agribusiness value chain.
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For the past six years, Ms Yeboah-Ghansah, the 2016 Second Runner-up of the Ghana’s Most Beautiful pageant, has been able to use herself as a living testimony to influence young ladies, particularly ladies in the tertiary institutions where agricultural programmes are run.
With the vision to leverage beauty pageant as a tool to mobilise and mentor the youth and women in the country for enhanced agripreneurship, wealth creation, employment generation and food security, she has so far successfully organised five beauty pageants and is currently registering interested ladies for the sixth edition.
This year's registration, which ends on March 8, is expected to attract quality participants who are studying agriculture or are already into one form of agriculture or another in the agricultural value chain.
The contest is opened to ladies between 18 and 30 years, and seeks to financially assist ladies in their respective agribusiness projects or ideas.
On the theme "Agriculture innovation for productivity, the role of the female agriculturist," this year's pageant will attract some of the finest participants, who will showcase their projects and ideas.
The participants will be trained on polishing their project ideas as well as undertake industrial trips to have a feel of how the industry operates.
Contestants
Speaking on who qualifies to participate in the contest, Mrs Yeboah-Ghansah explained that it was open to ladies with agribusiness projects or ideas that needed a start-up support.
She explained that the judges would visit those participants with already existing projects and those with agribusiness ideas would be assisted to shape them for take-off.
Mrs Yeboah-Gansah explained that the participants would also meet with the judges before the grande finale.
She added that this year's contest would be more engaging and practical-oriented.
Asked what she expected from the participants, she said: "We expect them to carry the brand and portray a good image of the pageant because they represent it."
Mrs Yeboah-Ghansah said she believed that women played a crucial role in all farm-related activities, from land preparation to marketing and, therefore, getting the young and educated ladies to participate in those roles would mainstream a large section of society into the sector.
Success story
Since the introduction of the show, the winners have moved on to be successful agribusiness entrepreneurs.
For instance, the maiden winner, of 2018, is currently into oyster and mushroom production, while the 2019 winner is into vegetable production.
The winner for the year 2020 is currently a successful poultry farmer and producer of chicken spice while the 2021 counterpart is into greenhouse vegetable farming.
The 2022 winner, who is currently pursuing advocacy programmes, especially with young girls in senior high schools, to develop interest in agriculture, owes a processing business that packages cassava and plantain flour.