2018 ASHS Annual Conference

Farming is the principal economic activity in most rural areas of Turkey. Women represent a substantial share of the total agricultural labor force. Therefore, they need vocational training and guidance in their work places, but unfortunately, that was missing. The Empowering Women Farmers with Agricultural Business Management Training Project (EMWOFA) is a comprehensive training program for women farmers developed so that women farmers can develop technical, entrepreneurial and managerial skills. Turkish extension educators trained the first group of 34 women in Kozagacı village in Turkey last year using materials developed by EMWOFA. First, we trained extension educators using a teachers’ manual called the EMWOFA Educational program. The extension educators trained the women farmers using a workbook designed to help women farmers develop a business plan for their farms and review best management production methods for growing horticultural crops. The women could access E-learning videos that summarized the curriculum in the educational program and workbook on the EMWOFA website. Seventy percent of these women were the sole owner of their farming business, and their average age was 32.1 with an average 12.7 years farming. The greenhouse vegetables that they produced included tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce and beans. Over eighty percent of the women felt that the business management and technical production sections of the program were valuable or very valuable. Nearly half of the participants selected management as the most useful part of the course. The majority of them plan to make changes in their production and management components of their business because of attending the program. Over 75% plan to keep better records after participating in EMWOFA training.