‘Women farmers need grants not loans’

Mrs Igbine made the call recently during the 2014 National Agricultural Show Seminar at Tudun Wada, along Abuja-Keffi expressway in Nasarawa State.She lamented that women farmers who engaged in various agricultural activities and contribute greatly to food production but lack access to agricultural financing and the challenge have been ignored by relevant stakeholders.According to her, […]

Mrs Igbine made the call recently during the 2014 National Agricultural Show Seminar at Tudun Wada, along Abuja-Keffi expressway in Nasarawa State.
She lamented that women farmers who engaged in various agricultural activities and contribute greatly to food production but lack access to agricultural financing and the challenge have been ignored by relevant stakeholders.
According to her, in consideration of the important role of women in agriculture and their exclusion and discrimination in various aspects, they should be adequately assisted to generate higher incomes from their farms to ensure better living.
“Women farmers need grants not loans, let President Goodluck Jonathan fulfill his earlier promise to us now. We have been waiting.” Mrs. Igbine appealed.
She said apart from agricultural finance, women farmers face other farm input challenges including lack of access to fertilizer, seed, land and agricultural equipment.
Also presenting a paper at the seminar, the Chairperson, Action Aid, Nigeria, Professor Patricia Donli, equally decried the exclusion and discrimination of women in agriculture by the government and other stakeholders.
She said land grabbing has deprived many farmers in the country including women of their farm lands, thereby robbing them of their source of livelihood.
Professor Donli pointed out that female extension workers are needed to assist women farmers especially in Northern Nigeria with information on farming activities so as to ensure higher output.
But a farmer from Zamfara state, Alhaji Mohammed Bello said the problem of the female farmers is the same with what their male counterparts are facing, adding, “We are all facing the same problems as farmers. We are all victims of the promise and fail of this administration. The present administration is not addressing the problems of subsistent farming in the country,” he said.