Smallholder Women Farmers, PDA celebrate World Food Day in retrospect, identify barriers to food security
By Oswald Agwu
Smallholder Women Farmers in Ebonyi State have identified climate change, insecurity in farms, land saturation and unhealthy political interferences as major impediments to achieving food security in the Nigeria.
They also identified delay in release of farm inputs from government, lack of access to Agricultural credits, lack of storage facilities, among others as contributory factors.
The Women farmers spoke during a one day stakeholders interactive meeting and Agricultural product exhibition held Monday in Abakaliki, Ebonyi State capital.
The event was organised by a Civil Society Organization, Participatory Development Alternatives under her project, Scaling Up Public Investment in Agriculture, with support from Actionaid-Nigeria.
State Coordinator of the group, Chinyere Agbafor, and the PRO, Nnenna Ibiam, while speaking to newsmen at the event maintained that the nation’s inability to attain food security should not be blamed on the farmers but on certain emergent issues impacting negatively on the sector.
Ibiam said: ” It is not really that farmers are not doing much, but things are changing with time.
“When you talk of climate change, it is one of the contributors; you also talk about insecurity and other internal issues like late distribution of farm inputs.
“In some places, women no longer go to farms for fear of being raped or even killed by bandits.
“Generally, the system is changing whereby land is no longer yielding her increase because in most places, land is getting saturated.
“Politics is also one big factor affecting us because of undue interference in processes by office holders and inconsistencies in policies and programmes occasioned by frequent changes in government.”
Stakeholders at the event commended the Smallholder Women Farmers in Ebonyi State for their efforts towards achieving food sufficiency in the state.
In their separate speeches, Charles Okorie, Director of Nutrition, State Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources and his counterpart, the Director of Extension Services, Ebonyi State Agricultural Development Programme, Regina Oroke, expressed delight over the activities of the Smallholder Women Farmers Organization in Nigeria and the PDA which they observed, has continued to assist greatly in providing food at the table of Ebonyi Citizens.
Oroke said: “We appreciate the efforts of the SWOFON and PDA in eradicating hunger and poverty which is in alarming rate in Nigeria.
“The PDA has remained a great partner in training, mentoring and monitoring of the Smallholder Women farmers, and availing them needed assistance to ensure a boost in their Agricultural productivity.
“These efforts has also boosted the economy of the women and the state while prospecting food security in the state and Nigeria in general.”
Okorie, representing the State Commissioner for Agriculture, Nkechinyere Iyioku-Ezeani, said Governor Nwifuru was committed to improving Investment in Agriculture.
“We want to assure you that the present government in the state is committed to eradicating hunger and poverty in the state”, he added.
The Program Manager, PDA, Ugochi Joseph, said the target of the meeting which brought together the women farmers, State Ministry of Agriculture and the CSOs was to fashion collective ways of achieving food security in the state particularly, and the nation in general.
She advocated intensive training for the women farmers on Agroecology which would build their capacity in the use of organic fertilizers in food production.
She also urged the government to increase budgetary allocation to Agriculture, give specific and greater attention to Smallholder Women farmers as gateways to achieving food security in the country.
She added that the emphasis on Smallholder Women farmers stem from the fact that about 80% of farmers in Nigeria rural communities are mainly women.
Resource persons at the event: a nutrition expert and Coordinator, Women in Agriculture, Chidinma Obi-Okoye, and the Director of Nutrition, Ministry of Agriculture, Charles Mkpuma Okorie, educated the women on Importance of nutrition and Promoting Citizens’ right to food, respectively.
World Food Day is observed October 16, every year.
It is a day set aside to promote global awareness towards eradication of hunger, malnutrition and poverty.
