Agriculture
ALLIANCE for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) project Gender Consortium says it has empowered more than 20,000 women famers with inputs, capacity building, and financial literacy in Kaduna and Niger states.
The consortium, made up of Legal Awareness for Nigeria Women (LANW), Value Seeds Ltd and Palm Valley Nigeria Ltd, was also mobilising support for women active participation in agricultural production.
Officials of the consortium stated this in separate interviews with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Kaduna.
They told NAN on the side-line of a validation of Gender Situation Analysis of Agriculture and Rural Development in Kaduna State, that the support was under a three-year project designed to empower women farmers.
Mr Idoko Samson, Project Lead, Value Seed Ltd., told NAN that Value Seed provides farm inputs while Palm Valley provides training services on group formation, access to finance and business management.
Samson added that LANW would, among other things, push for gender mainstreaming in agriculture.
He said that Value Seed had so far reached 12,344 women farmers in Kaduna and Niger states with input packs for agricultural production.
Samson explained that for a quarter hectare of land, a beneficiary received a full input package to cultivate maize, rice, soyabeans, and cowpea.
The beneficiaries are expected to give the organisation three bags after harvest.
“For half a hectare the beneficiary will give six bags and 12 bags for a hectare of land, and we will equally link them up with up takers who will purchase the produce at premium price.
“Our target in the first year is to reach 15,000 women and youth farmers, and so far, we have reached 12,344 of them.
“The second year target is 20,000 smallholder women farmers and hope to reach another 10,000 women farmers in the third year, amounting to 45,000 women farmers in the two states,” he said.
Also speaking, Ms Mercy Dawa, Administration and Finance Officer, Palm Valley Nig. Ltd, said the organisation had so far trained more than 8,000 of the targeted 15,000 women.
Dawa added that the women were being trained on group dynamics, business management, cooperatives, financial literacy and linking them to financial institutions to access financial resources.
She said that after the training, the farmers would be grouped into Village Savings and Loan Association (VSLA) and registered with the state government to operate as cooperative societies.
She said so far a total of 400 VSLA had been formed in the two states, adding that the target was to set up 2,000 functional VSLAs in the two states by the end of the project.
“We will also establish point of sales in benefitting communities where we will collect output from the famers, process, package and sell within the community,” she said.
Mrs Rebecca Sako-John, member of the Board of Trustee of LANW told NAN that the project was designed to enhance resilience and upscaling of gender inclusive rural economy for increased productivity, livelihood, and food security.
Sako-John said the objective was to increase productivity for women smallholder farmers and strengthen young women’s access to output markets at scale in Nigeria and Kaduna state.
The board member added that the project would also increase the capacity of smallholder farming households and value chain actors to better prepare and adapt to shocks and stresses.
She explained that other roles assigned to LANW was the conduct of gender sensitisation to encourage smallholder women farmers to participate in agricultural practices and strengthening the capacity of women’s agricultural groups on advocacy and networking as well as facilitating the creation of 20 advocacy groups.
“LANW is also responsible for the collation of stakeholders’ inputs on existing gaps in the existing agricultural policy in Kaduna state and advocate for the gender sensitive agricultural policy.
“So far, we have commissioned a Gender Situation Analysis of Agriculture and Rural Development which is being validated and findings will be used in the development of gender agricultural policy in Kaduna state.
“We will equally facilitate the alignment of the National Gender Policy in Agriculture with the gender component of the State Agricultural Policy,” she said.
Sako-John added that LANW would equally advocate the allocation of two per cent threshold of the social protection budget to support access to finance for smallholder women farmers.
She also said that the NGO would equally advocate for three per cent of the state agricultural budget allocated to financing women-led Small and Medium Enterprises focused on input supply.(NAN)
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Tags: AGRA Idoko Samson LANW Mercy Dawa
