LET’S PROMOTE GENDER EQUALITY IN NIGERIA AGRICULTURE: CASE STUDY

With more women becoming the breadwinners of Nigerian families, analysts

have continued to harp on the need for more opportunities for women to
participate in agricultural activities.

Currently, farm implements, especially fertilizer, are shared only among men,
who are generally seen as the householders, without much attention to the
women farmers.

Hajia Gambo Nalado, a farmer in Kaduna spoke on this unfortunate trend

recently. She noted that the Nigerian woman farmer is particularly
marginalised in the Northern part of the Country because Cultural and religious
factors place her far below the man, even when most of the women are
breadwinners in their families. More than 70 per cent of the works on the
farms are done by women, Nalado observed. She explained that they till the
ground plant the seeds and apply the fertilizer and other farm inputs. We
(women) also harvest the crops and take them to the market for sale, she said.
Statistics from Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) supports Nalado’s
position. According to the World body, women produce more than 80 per cent
of basic foodstuffs.

Dr. Kanayo Nwanze, President International Fund for Agricultural Development

(IFAD) who recently visited Nigeria said that the rural woman farmer was
crucial to the realization of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as they
affect food security. He urged government at all levels to be “more sensitive to
issues concerning women farmers so as to position them as central to
agricultural development.”

But to make the farmer a key aspect of the agricultural sector, Dr. Bridget Obi,
Executive Director, children Farmers club, based in Awka, Anambra State has
called for practical methods to promote gender equality in the development
and distribution of agricultural inputs. She stressed the need for government at
all levels to build the capacity of women farmers to enable them participate in
National and International Forums on agriculture.

Contributing, Mrs. Irene Jumbo-Ibeakuzie, National Programme Coordinator,

IFAD/FG/NDDC, said she was sad that the Nigerian woman was not
considered as a factor in agriculture in spite of her contribution to the
household economy. “Daily, we have policies that deny the women access to
land, credit facilities and other farm inputs. We just cannot develop that way”,
she said. According to her, most women find it difficult to access micro credit
facilities provided by government because men that are expected to provide
the collateral usually refuse to do so. Only the men are legally qualified to
stand as sureties for loans in Nigeria.

Also, Madam Florence Akubiaja, a farmer from Makurdi, noted that women
were faced with a combination of challenges that were chasing them away
from farming. Listing the problems to include cultivation, processing, domestic
distractions, and the lack of encouragement, she said that such hardship have
forced many women to migrate from the farms to the urban areas where they
engage in anti-social activities. “The most worrisome disadvantage is our
limited access to farmlands and this has made it difficult for some of us to
expand and also forced us to continue to depend on the men”, she said

Mrs. Olubunmi Yetunde Ajani of the Department of Agricultural Economics,

University of Ibadan, spoke in a similar vein, stressing that it was saddening
that the Nigeria woman had continued to suffer marginalisation in all sectors.
“But I think the situation is worst in the agricultural sector even when studies
have revealed that women contribute significantly to food processing,
production and marketing; she said. She also decried the poor transport
system available to the rural woman, noting that various poverty alleviation
programmes had not yielded the desired results because they were not
supported with appropriate technologies.

Olubunmi stressed that women have the potential of increasing agricultural

production and suggested that they be empowered through education and
provision of appropriate technology that would address the gender dimensions
of poverty and all forms of discrimination against women. “To be effective,
government should not only advocate, but to legislate and demonstrate
gender mainstreaming in National and Local governance”, she declared.

According to Mrs. Tunrayo Agbaje, a yam farmer from Ekiti, women can only
be encourage to farm when government, at all levels, strive to correct the
participatory imbalance against women in most of its agricultural programmes.
“Those situations usually prevent the women from building self esteem and
becoming financially independent. When women are fully involved, they will
have more access to knowledge, modern technology, significant crop yields,
and can become powerful agents of change and instruments for improving the
family’s well being”. She advocated gender equality, mostly in the areas of
access to land, as well as access to credit facilities.

Further hope also recently came the way of women farmers with the
declaration by a former Nasarawa state governor, Abdullahi Adamu, who
acknowledged their contributions. Adamu, who is the President, All farmers
Association of Nigeria (AFAN), described their role as “very vital; and that they
should be given priority attention in a bid to attain food security. Adamu noted
that more than 79 per cent of farmers in the rural areas had no access to basic
infrastructures and those deprivations were part of the factors militating
against the development of Agriculture.

No sustainable agricultural development can take place without effective

collaboration between government on one hand, farmers and research
institutions on the other.

Our farmers do not get adequate reward for their efforts because of low
yielding, disease prone varieties which they are using.

I know that with the support of government and collective will of farmers we
will be able to get there. However, the economic situation in the farming
communities and families did not correlate with the massive efforts invested
and proven scientific breakthroughs that had been recorded. “As managers of
systems and scientists who have worked tirelessly for the common good and
for the uplift of the quality of life of the larger segment of Nigerian population,
we should be interested in seeking to understand why our cumulative efforts
appear not to have the desired effect”.

The efforts of the scientists were not impacting on the communities because of
the mismatch between the research arm and the extension unit of the Nigeria
Agricultural Enterprise in terms of expertise, resources, focus and response to
change circumstances. The others are attributable to a mono cultural approach
to development issue, recent studies showed that agricultural technologies
alone delivered to Communities were either not enough to stimulate
economic empowerment or were too slow to make the desired impact over a
realistic time frame.

I suggest that for researchers’ input to count in the country’s quest for
economic development in the sector, “planning sessions must embrace a
paradigm shift that recognizes the need for linkages with other operators in
the social sector.

Research that will address these issues satisfactorily lies in changing the
agenda of research development to what is now known as Participatory
Research and Development.

The approach would respond to problems, needs and opportunities identified

by users; evaluate technology options and ensure that technical innovations
were appropriate for the local socio-economic, cultural and political
environment. Experts agree that for Nigeria to attain sufficiency in food
production and guarantee food security, the old approach to agricultural
development should be discarded. In addition, they say that the envisaged
agricultural research and development should promote wider sharing and use
of agricultural innovations.

Sonigitu Ekpe-Aji

Customer Care/ Complaints Officer

Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources
2 Barracks Road
P.M.B 1119
Calabar 540001
Cross River State
Nigeria