Available statistical data in Nigeria about the number of women engaging in agriculture as primary source of living and income generation estimated 70 percent of women are actively participating in the agricultural activities in the nation’s economy, despite sundry daunting constraints. With the Federal Government’s National Gender Policy in Agriculture, the women-farmer challenges still persist with the attendant negative implications for their productivity and earnings. In this Feature article,120edgenews, critically appraises the issues hampering women farmers’ outputs and how to frontally address them for Nigeria’s socioeconomic benefits and sustainable GDP growth.
By Victoria Onehi
Forty years ago, when Florence Idiodeh married, little did she know that she would become a farmer. But today, with a few grey hairs on her head, she looks back with nostalgia to recount the highs and lows of how she has grown as a farmer. However, from growing up to 100 hectares of farmland in her early years of farming, today her farmland had reduced to 3 hectares.
Florence tells her story thus: “I do farming as a business and to serve me at home. When I started farming about 40 years ago, then, I just had my first child and I had about 100 hectares of land. Then, I plant vegetables and people come from Garki and other Sateliite cities in Abuja to buy vegetables from my farm in Gwagwalada. I farm Ugwu (pumpkin) and water leaves, with cassava. Now, the size of our farm has reduced from 100 hactares to 3 hectares. I reduced the farmland because of the stress and there is no money to invest and fund the farm.
“When you are farming and you don’t have the fund” Florence said, “you cannot meet up because you need fertiliser. You also have to worry about the weeding. Also, inputs have become expensive. Even the seedlings have become expensive. In 1990, we were buying a custard container of ugwu/pumpkin seeds, for two thousand five hundred. Now, one custard container of pumpkin is 23, 000 naira. There is a specie of ugwu seed that is even 28,000.This will give you wide leaves. Then I will buy like 100 custard container seedling to enable me do my farm very well. Now, I can’t do all that because the seedlings are very expensive and I don’t have the fund to continue doing it like that”, she added.
The woman farmer says her major challenge not being able to continue farming in a large-scale is lack of finance.”The fund is not enough to invest in the farm. Also, the land is not there. You know, we rent the land, the rentage now is very high because the Gbagi man will say you are using his land for business, and so will be increasing the money, he does not care whether you make profit or not.”Florence explains.
Another female farmer, Perpetual Nkechi Okafor, who has grown her farmland over the years and today is the Chairman of the FCT All Farmers Association (AFAN) say women farmers face myrids of challenges which male farmers necessarily do not face. Corroborating Florence’s stance, she said having access to land remained a major challenge.
“Culture has made it that women are limited in having land. Our challenges are numerous. Land is a limiting factor”, Perpetual lamented.
A table showing distribution of land ownership by gender as reported by Nigeria Gender Report (2012) from data obtained from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed that “in the rural area, while 8.5 percent females own a land,38.1 of their male counterparts own land.
“Amongst the rural poor, 10.1 percent of women own a land while 49.5 percent men own land.In the urban area, while 4.5 percent women own a land,22.4 male own land.Amongest the urban poor,5.9 percent own a land,while 28 percent men own land.”
“Similarly, in the North East only 4 percent women own a land compared 52.2 percent of men in the North East.
“Again, in the North Central, 4.7 percent of women own land compared to 50.1 percent men in the zone. In the North Central,7.9 percent women own land compared 41.2 percent men that own land in the zone.”
“In the South East,10.6 percent women own land compared to 38.1 percent in the zone. In the South West, 5.9 percent women own land compared to 22.5 men in the zone. In the South South,10.9 percent women own a land compared to 28.3 percent of men in the zone.”
From the above data, it is glaring that although women represent between 60 percent and 79 percent of Nigeria’s agriculture sector labour force, males are five times more likely to own a land than females. These affect their ability to access finance by using land as a collateral property which often delays investment decisions or reduces the earning potential of agriculture.
Consequently, Perpetual corroborated this stating that apart from land,many women farmers don’t have collateral to get loan even when loan is available. So, finance is a great challenge for female farmers.
Similarly, Perpetual said inability to get fertiliser has been a great challenge for female farmers, noting that “the fertiliser they said the government brought this year, no member of AFAN saw it. No female farmer under AFAN received any fertiliser. So, they forget us women farmers.”
The woman farmer, who described herself as a born farmer said she studied agriculture as first and 2nd degrees and displayed products from her farm alongside other farmers at the AFAN,FCT Farmers Day event held as part of activities to mark the World Food Day.
She said: “I am a practical farmer. The garden egg and sweet potatoes you are seeing there are from my farm. I am not a portfolio farmer. I am also a farmers’ advocate. I am advocating for myself and other farmers.”
Another woman, Josephine Ayinde said since she retired as a civil servant, she has been farming as a business, “And because I work with the grassroots women a lot, I opened a cooperative. I started the Favour Multipurpose Cooperative, were I have these farmers in Bwari Area Council and we work in collaboration with AFAN for them to assist farmers in the grassroots.
Josephine said having worked with most of the female farmers, she discovered some of the challenges they face.
She clarified: “The first challenge we have is lack of inputs. Most times, they bring fertiliser, the grassroots women will not have it, the ‘big men’ will collect it and give those they know.
“Another challenge is that of herder/farmers clashes, which everybody knows. The herders carry there cattles and step on our crops which we have planted. And most of these women, have collected money from the Cooperative, they invest and at the end of the day, they will find it difficult to pay back because their crops were destroyed. The major challenge is insecurity which is a national issue.
“Also, some of our farmers do not have land. Most of the farmlands are peoples plot. The other time some of the farmers were lamenting that the owners of the land they rented were they planted crops want to collect their land back. The land owners just came to get their land without prior notice. And then, they have planted already. So land is an issue. Many of us are not indigenes so, we don’t have access to the land directly, but indigenes have a way to have land.
“Another major challenge is finance. We need grant, we don’t need loan. Because if we take loan, were will we get money to pay back. So, in any way the government will give us grant, we want them to help us. We need grant not loans”, she pleaded.
To address these challenges, the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security came up with the National Gender Policy in Agriculture.
Section 1.1 of the document tagged Policy Rational and Justification reads in part: “Huge gender inequality abound in the Agricultural sector with women and people with special needs contributing a lot to food security, yet they have an infinitesimal access to available agricultural asset and face challenges such as limited access to inputs, fertiliser, seed, funds, market, land , information, appropriate technology, extension services and less participation in decision-making among others. When categories of people with special needs and women are marginalised by processes, policies are needed to reduce their vulnerability and protect their livelihood, hence, the need for Gender Policy in Agriculture to bridge the gender gap. The Gender Policy in Agriculture serves as a road-map that indicates how addressing gender gap in agriculture development can be optimised to maximise the impact on food security.”
Solutions to the challenges
Experts say women play a big role in the nation’s agriculture sector and that if they are given more support, they will do more.
Confirming this view, Perpetual says despite all the challenges, women are still making headway in the sector. She collaborate the data that women form 70 percent of workforce in the agriculture sector.
She explained: “Let me tell you that women are the major people in agriculture. In processing and other aspects of farming, women are the one making farming to happen.70 percent of the farmers engaging in agriculture are women. So, we are there. But despite the fact that we are active, we are being neglected. Government should work with AFAN, and they will reach farmers especially in grassroots.”
According to her, one way government can boost the efforts of women in agriculture is to domesticate the gender policy on Agriculture.
Perpetual said: “If I meet the Minister of Agriculture today, I will tell him that the National Gender Policy jn Agriculture that they have started working on, they should continue and make sure that it is domesticated in every state to ensure that women have their percentage in Agriculture budget. Women farmers should have their percentage in agriculture budget. Real not just on paper.
“Farming is a business and should not be seen as a project for the poor. If they see it like that, we will not achieve food security. If government will support us, we want to conduct training on good agricultural best practices. Empowerment for farmers can be money, knowledge, and provision of inputs. So, we want to build our farmers capacity to enable them compete with other farmers in other parts of the world”, she added.
Commenting on the policy initiative of the government, the Assistant Director and Head, Gender Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, Mrs Ifeoma Anyanwu, clarified that the National Gender Policy in Agriculture was hinged on the National Gender Policy 2006 and its strategic Implementation Framework (2008).She said the thrust of the gender policy on Agriculture is helping to resolve gender equity and equality for optimum productivity in the agricultural sector.She said gender equality remained crucial for agricultural development and the attainment of the SDGs.
Anyanwu, during a telephone interview with 120edgenews, said the National Gender Policy in Agriculture is already being domesticated in many states.
She maintained: “The goal of the Agricultural Gender Policy is to ensure equal opportunities and access to resources, services and programmes in agriculture in Nigeria irrespective of gender to ensure food security and economic growth in Nigeria.
“Achieving food security,reducing poverty and sustaining the livelihoods of people with special needs and women who rely on agricultural value chains require improving systems and approaches of accessing the means of production e.g (knowledge, skills, technologies,land,seeds , fertiliser,accessing markets and more. Mainstreaming gender in agriculture is a means by which both women and people with special needs will have equal access to opportunities in the sector so that both parties can fully benefit from the outputs and outcomes from agricultural value chains.”Anyanwu said.
To enable women farmers get more funds to invest in their farms, the Assistant Director advised female farmers to approach the Bank of Industry (BOI ) and Bank of Agriculture(BOA) as individuals or as a Corporative to be able to access loans.
She said though government had not earmarked a percentage of the budget to assist female farmers but that an appropriate and conducive policy environment exist in Nigeria for the implementation of the Gender Policy in Agriculture.
