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