A civil Society, partnership for economic policy, PEP in a study revealed that inadequate access to agricultural fund and land is a huge problem facing the Nigeria Agricultural Sector
Emily Ikhinde, a Research team member of PEP, in a presentation said despite women providing over 70% of agriculture labour in Nigeria, many women’s farming activities are not measured or paid and as such their productivity is not counted
She explained that “female farmers receive less than 10% of the credit offered to small-scale farmers and are often unable to access Agricultural input like high-yield seedlings and fertilizers, due to their prices. And men are five times more likely to own their own land than women as customary law do not recognize women’s land ownership.
The research team lead, PEP, Opeyemi Akinyemi, speaking on how to improve food Security and Agricultural processes in the rural area, said government has to do more in terms of targeted financing in Agriculture and rural electrification.
” On rural electrification, we have found out that complementary Programmes will produce an optimal action for finance that government is providing.
While stating the need for sustainance of the support for women in Agriculture, Akinyemi reiterated that the effect of rural electrification on women productivity needs to be considered.
She said “Nigeria needs an hybrid system and compliment the existing policies with other policies that drives productivity and this is what will endenger women to benefit from the rural electrification Programme and from the agricultural policy that government is enacting
“The Rural electrification fund is a mixed and hybrid system where it has government and private sector engagement. We have government providing the pact in terms of subsidy and the investors providing part of the money. But our key policy message is showing government that the best outcome or policy initiative is the one that is complimentary, so just providing the subsidy alone is not be sufficient to achieve the objective of the government. what will help the government is to compliment this subsidy with other Programmes that support Agricultural productivity and household productivity for women.” She concluded.
Speaking on how to improve women’s productivity in agriculture, the head of gender unit ministry of agriculture, Ifeoma Anyawu, urged women in Agriculture to work as corporative and not silos for easy access to funds, ensure standardization of produce, and leverage on information from the metrological Agency to minimize weather impact on farm activities.
