Agribusiness trialblazer Mariam Twumasi

Marian Ofori Twumasi is an established young female farmer moving steadily towards global recognition with her company, Mariseth Farms.

Mariseth Farms, an acronym of Marian and Seth (husband’s name) was founded in 2016 and has since grown to become one of the biggest suppliers of palm fruits, palm oil, maize, soya beans and other com­modities to companies and households within Accra, Tema and beyond.

Operating on over 400 acre-land at Bibiani in the Western North Re­gion and Asamankese in the Eastern Region, Mariseth Farms is setting the pace within the Agriculture sector.

The 35-year-old Mariam Twumasi, the 2021 National Best Youth Farm­er is living the dream of making her farm, the hub for all natural produce (crops and livestock) in Ghana.

The dream, however, started in 2009 at the University of Ghana (UG) where she pursued Business Adminis­tration (Accounting).

Though, she had no knowledge about Agriculture, she was deter­mined to venture into the sector and be successful, turning her main course of study into just an additional skill to her now real profession.

She approached the business as a hobby in 2009. She would visit farms with the desire to access some acres of land to start her own. She became successful eventually after secur­ing three acres of land at Asamankese to start a Cocoa farm.

The former student of St. Roses Secondary School at Akwatia, near Asamankese chose the area since it was closer to Accra.

While in the university, she managed to save her pocket mon­ey together with some money she made out of her part-time teaching job to secure the land.

The plan was to go into Cocoa farming since she benefitted from Cocoa scholarship due to her father’s job. She later realised Cocoa was long-term so she had to do maize and other short-term crops while seek­ing for funds to sup­port the long-term Cocoa project.

She then decided to go into some form of business, which was buying plantains from the villages in the area to Accra to sell.

That led to a decision to plant her own plantains and maize which she sold to make money to support her farm.

Mrs Twumasi later ex­panded the farm to seven acres in Asamankese, in 2012 when she completed university.

It was at that time she met her husband, Mr Seth Ofoe Twumasi who she described as her business partner. She sold the Agri­business idea to Mr Twumasi which he has since support­ed.

Mr Twumasi managed to convince chiefs of his home­town, Nkronua at Bibiani in the Western North Region to allocate lands to them to start their farm project which was successful with an initial allocation of 10 acres to start with palm plantation.

The chiefs later realised she was doing well and granted her full ac­cess; which gave her over 400 acres of oil palm plantation and about 1000 acres yet-to-be cultivated land.

After a few years, she is able to sell some of the fruits, process some into palm oil and palm kernel oil and manage three fish ponds (catfish), 50 bee hives, livestock, poultry and other facilities on the same farm.

Eventually, she moved into big time commodities after the company, Mariseth was registered in 2016.

She also supplies soya beans, shea nuts, cashew as well as maize to com­panies and clients mostly in Tema and Accra.

Aside winning the National Best Youth Farmer award in 2021, she was awarded the Best Oil Palm Farmer in 2019, the first runner up, Mu­nicipal Best Farmer in 2020, Outstanding Woman in Agri­business (GOWA 2020) the Change Champion and Young Agri-Preneur of the Year in 2022 and other recog­nitions. She is looking forward to winning more awards in 2024.

Marian got married to Mr Twumasi in 2013 and together, they have four beautiful girls. She described her husband as a pillar.

In the next five years, she would want to own a Pro­cessing Plant in the Western North Region to serve the oil palm farms in the area and a Mariseth Farm Village which would among other essentials have a storage facility.

She advised young people to take advantage of government initiatives in Agriculture and venture into the sector because it is very lucrative.

 By Michael D. Abayateye