How Kano women move from kitchen to agro-business

Sixty-four-year-old Hajiya Hinde Maishinkafa has been a farmer for over two decades. When she decided to venture into agriculture business, particularly rice farming, people thought she was unserious. “They kept telling me I have no business in men’s dominated trade and I shouldn’t dare try, but I knew I could do it,” she recalled.   Though, […]

Sixty-four-year-old Hajiya Hinde Maishinkafa has been a farmer for over two decades. When she decided to venture into agriculture business, particularly rice farming, people thought she was unserious. “They kept telling me I have no business in men’s dominated trade and I shouldn’t dare try, but I knew I could do it,” she recalled. 

 Though, she was ill-equipped and had little knowledge of practical aspect of farming, she was determined to succeed, no matter the odds. And, today, with the assistance she got from an association, she is a proud successful farmer.

 A visit to her village revealed that Hajiya Hinde Maishinkafa is among the biggest rice farmers in Bunkure. Employing more than 15 people, her farm produced over 120 bags of rice this year.  

It was also discovered that, with the intervention of SAA, Hinde’s farming practices got the push it needed as she was connected to where she can get hybrid seeds, trained on modern farming techniques and modern preservation process.

 “I was operating on trial and error bases, but when Sasakawa Africa Association (SAA) came, they asked us to form associations of maximum number of 25 women each, which we did, and they linked us with seed companies and fertiliser dealers where we can obtain good seeds and fertiliser at affordable price.”

 Continuing, she said: “The interesting part of all this is when SAA gave us a complete milling machine as a form of loan. The good news here is that, the association paid half of the price of the milling machine. We now cultivate and mill our rice and also mill for others. We now mill 30 bags of rice, daily, at N1, 000 per bag. Poverty among women in our community is a thing of the past. Virtually all the women are engaged, one way or the other, no one wants to be left behind.”

During an assessment visit of Sasakawa projects with a media team to Bunkure Local Government Area as part of activities to mark Sasakawa’s 30th anniversary in Nigeria, Dr Esther Ibrahim of Sasakawa stated that the SG2000-Nigeria country programme began in March 1992, under an agreement signed with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources. The initiative targeted federal and state agencies to raise agricultural productivity and improve food crop marketing among Nigerian farmers.

She said that the project has recorded many successes in creating market for products produced by small-scale farmers and improved their knowledge on new agricultural techniques through which Hajiya Hinde’s association benefited.

 “We are promoting women engagement in agriculture in virtually all the northern states in Nigeria, and the good news here is that most of these women have formed groups and are presently fully engaged in full time agricultural practices,” she said.

 “This is a clear indication that, what our women need is just the motivational assistance to move from the kitchen to the field and become more productive and self-dependant,” Dr Ibrahim said.