THE Small Scale Women Farmers Organisation of Nigeria (SWOFON) met in Calabar, the Cross River State capital, to rub minds on how to improve their farming skills.
Facilitated by Action Aid International, the women farmers sought means to improve their capacity to understand and push for improvement.
National Secretary of Small Scale Women Farmers Organisation of Nigeria Mrs Ejim Lovely in Nnenna said: “We are in Calabar to sensitise the rural women farmers in Calabar and to make them have an interface and synergy with their duty bearers so that they would know that they can relate with the top authorities who have what they need to do their farm activities.
“We are targeting to get as much as we can, rural women farmers in the agricultural sector for them to come out of their shackles to know they are important and needed in this country. 80 per cent of the workforce is women, so we want to bring them out of their shackles to let them know where they belong. We also to make the country sufficient in having what to eat because our major problem now is food. We want to flood our markets with what we produce, so we would not have any need to go outside before we eat. Again we need to make our youths understand that this phase of adults will one day go and it would only be left with them. So let us go into agriculture as the only best alternative and try to propagate the new policy about the agricultural development of this country. So that we all together will make it happen. Oil is fast going down. Agriculture is the target, so let us do it.”
On challenges they face as small-scale women farmers, Nnena said, they include access to land, funds and government policies.
“Land is a major challenge. Funds is another. Again government policies is a challenge because they do not call us to sit when they are deciding. So we feel that when they are making these policies, we should be involved because it is us they are talking about. Also when the policies are made, in the process of implementation they should let us know and call us into it, because it is what itches you that you know how best to scratch.”
The chairperson of SWOFON coordinating committee in the state, Maria Ekanem AyiUkpayang, also said: “The purpose for this forum is to bring all small scale women farmers of Nigeria in the south-south region of Nigeria to x-ray what has been done by SWOFEON committees, get to know ourselves and then forge the way forward. We want to get engaged with government, particularly in the agricultural sector and make government really aware of small-scale women farmers.”
International Manager for Public Financing for Agriculture, Action Aid, Ms. Constance Okeke, said, they were focused on building capapcities for small women farmers across Africa.
“We are building them to understand policy processes especially in terms of budget. The idea is basically aimed at supporting the women farmers to understand how a policy is designed and how the policy processes run in terms of finances of agriculture in their different countries.”
A representative of the State Ministry of Agriculture, Mrs Justina Ulafor, promised the state would continue to support women farmers.
Source: The Nation
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