WOMEN FARMERS TASKED ON CONTRIBUTION TO FOOD SECURITY.



Jos - In order to encourage women farmers, address lack of access to land and boost food security, the Plateau State Ministry of Agriculture has concluded plan to provide farmlands across the three Senatorial zones of the State for small scale rural farmers.

This was disclosed by the National President of Small-scale Women Farmers Organization in Nigeria, SWOFON, Mrs. Mary Afan while speaking with journalists in Jos.

Afan stated that investment in food security will ensure other forms of security not only in the State but the nation adding that the provision of farm inputs and giving rural women access to land would contribute immensely in addressing poverty in the land.

She further called for increase in budgetary allocation and timely release of funds to the agricultural sub-sector by all tiers of government and urged rural women not to see farming as a hobby but a means of investment and livelihood.

According to her, “SWOFON works with rural women farmers and our vision is to build capacity and be a strong advocacy platform for smallholder women farmers to participate in translating agricultural policies into action.

“Our major problems are lack of access to land, lack of access to credit facility, lack of access to market, lack of information services, lack of infrastructural development, lack of inclusion and lack of organization and linkages.

“But we are not deterred because we know food security is security, the State Ministry of Agriculture has intervened by giving us a truckload of fertilizer at subsidized rate and plans are underway to provide farmlands across the three Senatorial zones for rural women to farm.”


She however urged government at all levels to stop paying lip service to agricultural issues but improve support for value chain programmes so that there would be food security and poverty reduction.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tomato disease outbreak: Institute appeals for research funding

The National Horticultural Research Institute, Ibadan, has appealed for funding to carry out research and create awareness on the tuta absoluta pest on tomatoes. The Institute’s Head of Vegetable Programme, Dr Olagorite Adetula, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Ibadan on Friday that there was an urgent need to tackle the problem to save the economy. Adetula said the institute needed money to do surveillance survey of the pest/damage, ascertain the impact of the damage and proffer solution for eradicating the pest. She appealed to the Federal Government to help the institute get pheromones to lure and trap the pests and distribute to farmers. ``Spraying insecticides is not the best, the pest has high production rate, some of them can escape while spraying it and they will be resistant to the insecticide thereby causing us more cost. ``The pheromones can be used for six to eight weeks before changing it, it is very effective, the pest has short life cycle, wit
Read more

10,000 women farmers to be engaged in ECOWAS rice project – official

Image
 Mr Richard Olafare, the President, Seed Entrepreneurs Association of Nigeria (SEEDAN) says 10,000 women will be engaged in the recently inaugurated Rice Seed Up-Scaling Project. This is contained in a presentation on the project made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Friday. Olafare said 8,000 youths would also be engaged in the scaling project. According to him, the number of women and youths represented 50 per cent and 40 per cent respectively of the 20,000 farmers that will participate in the project. NAN reports that the project is an initiative of the West Africa Seed Programme (WASP) in support of the ECOWAS Rice Offensive Programme that was inaugurated in 2014. Among other objectives, it is targeting the production of 60,000 metric tonnes of paddy rice for Nigeria by December 2017, using 1,200 certified seeds. The project is being implemented by SEEDAN in collaboration with the West and Central Africa Council for Agricultural Re
Read more

NEGPRO project can create more jobs with inclusion of meat production— Badmus

•Tuns Farm leads food safety, quality system audit The Chairman , Tuns Farms Nigeria, Asiwaju Olatunde Badmus, has disclosed that the proposed one million jobs expected to be created through the National Egg Production Scheme (NEGPRO) can be doubled if extended to meat production. He made this known when a team from the office of the Vice President, Federal Ministries of Agriculture, Health and Education at the company’s headquarters in Osogbo, the Osun state capital recently. Olatunde Badmus, while sharing the company’s experience on chicken inclusion in the Osun state’s school meal program which the company has been handling since the introduction of the school feeding program four years ago, said they can achieve so much more in terms of job creation through meat production “As we speak, six state governors among who are Kebbi and Borno, have signalled their government’s preparedness to look into this and have invited TUNS farm to their states to discuss modalities for
Read more