Women trained in tomato production, processing

Declaring the three days training workshop open, permanent secretary of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Mrs. Ibukun Odusote represented by Head Gender and Youth Division of the ministry, Mrs. K. I.  said the training is organized to empower women who are engaged in agriculture by teaching them new methods of enhanced production and processing of […]

Declaring the three days training workshop open, permanent secretary of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Mrs. Ibukun Odusote represented by Head Gender and Youth Division of the ministry, Mrs. K. I.  said the training is organized to empower women who are engaged in agriculture by teaching them new methods of enhanced production and processing of tomato.  
Mrs Babangida said the target is women because, “when you talk of agriculture, you talk of women since they contribute about 70% to agricultural labour, 60% to agro processing and 50% to animal husbandry and yet they have very little access to productive resources.”
 She said when you talk of productive resources, you are talking about access to land, agric input and access to credit facility adding that they found out that women have less than 20% access to those things. “This programme is designed to mainstream women into agric value chain as well as to empower them.”
She urged women to come out and register under the e-wallet system so that they can also have access to subsidized seeds, fertilizer and other agricultural input of the federal government programme.
A participant from Kano, Safiya Mohammad said this is the first time such training is being organized for women in the country, noting that, “our farmer in the village does not know the importance of this and we hope to go back to our women farmers to impart the knowledge to them.”
Safiya, who said she has been into farming for over five years, lamented that access to land is one of the problems female farmers are facing in the country. “I want to add my voice to those voices calling for the allocation of land to women so as to boost women participation in agriculture,” she said.