Ghanaian maize farmer thrives on the ashes of destroyed forest

 For years, Christiana Akwabea admired the vast fields she visited in neighbouring districts to buy maize for reselling and dreamed of one day owning a plot of land where she could grow the staple crop.

But there wasn’t much land for commercial farming in Seikwa in Ghana’s Bono Region, and the local soil is more suitable for cultivating cashew and yam, says the statement from the African Development Bank Group.

In 2017, the mother of six got her wish fulfilled through forest plantation management company Form Ghana, which received a loan from the African Development Bank for a transformative forestry project.

After registering as a farmer with the Form Ghana programme, Christiana received land that had once been a forest in Berekum, about 30km from Seikwa.