The Ogbonge Women Agricultural Multi-purpose Society has granted more than N400 million single-digit interest loans to women farmers to boost local food production since inception in 2017.
The President of the association, Mrs Chinasa Asonye, disclosed this in an interview with Newsmen on Monday in Lagos.
Asonye said the society instituted in 2017 with 25 farmers had grown into a formidable force with more than 400 women farmers.
She noted that women farmers had been marginalised in the sector for a long time, hence the association’s aim to empower the gender for increased productivity.
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“It is common knowledge that women contribute more than 70 per cent of the labour force in the cultivation of food in the country. We are the ones that provide food for the nation. However, despite our productivity rate, we still do not get what we are supposed to get when it comes to financial inclusion.
“Hence our decision to set up the cooperative where we try to assist our women. We went into a village savings loan where the women come together, save together, give out loans with a single-digit interest loan so they can pay back,” the president said.
Asonye restated the impact of the loans on the women’s productivity and capacity building for those that tapped into the association’s loan scheme.
“And the loan has actually helped our women. It has increased their business, it has increased their profits, and it has built their capacity.
“Women farmers do not go to the banks now, banks are the ones coming to ask us for this or that and what we do. This is what we have done to encourage our women, to help our movement to build their business so that they can have a voice.
“We already have a voice in Lagos State, without women, there is no agriculture in Lagos State, because we know what we are doing in the agric business.
“We are thorough in our admission of women into the multi-purpose society because it has to do with financials. Most members join us based on referrals from trusted guarantors in order to check dubious entities,” Asonye said.