Ebonyi State Women Farmers Lament Restricted Access to Agric Inputs

Nigeria’s inability to guarantee food security, according to the Ebonyi state Smallholder Women Farmers, is a result of women farmers’ sporadic and restricted access to agricultural resources.

This was disclosed during the dissemination of the community scorecard on smallholder farmers’ access to agricultural/farm inputs in Ebonyi State.

The report was presented after a study conducted by Participatory Development Alternatives (PDA), under the Scaling Up Public Investment in Agriculture (SUPIA),  by PDA’s program officer himself, Ugochi Joseph, in Abakaliki the state capital.

According to the report, a greater percentage of women cooperative societies under the Smallholder Farmers Organization in Nigeria do not have access to agricultural inputs to enable them to scale up their production.

Part of the scorecard reads: “On having received farm input from the government within the past 4 years (2019–2022), 81% of smallholder women farmers’ indicated that their various cooperatives have not received agricultural inputs from the government in the past 4 years. While 19% indicated that they have received them.

“19% of smallholder women farmers affirmed that their various cooperatives accessed the inputs in the months of July and August 2022, while 81% said they never accessed farm inputs at all.
“This means that farm inputs are not distributed on time and annually to support smallholder women farmers.”

Among other things recommended by the report was the need for the government to integrate smallholder women farmers in the design of the input distribution model.

It further said that the distribution of farm inputs should be done directly to the stakeholders at the grassroots rather than at the state level so that they can get to the targeted beneficiaries.

“There should be adequate budgetary allocation to farm inputs in the yearly agriculture budget.

“The State Ministry of Agriculture should work in synergy with the Small Scale Women Farmers Organization in Nigeria (SWOFON), Ebonyi State, and other civil society organisations (CSOs) to be able to reach the targeted farmers,” the report added.

The Permanent Secretary of State Ministry of Agriculture, Mrs Patricia Okiri, represented by Chidinma Obiokoye, explained that the Ministry has implemented some policies to integrate women farmers in its agricultural programmes, including extension officers and a desk office for women farmers at the Ebonyi State Agricultural Development Programme.

Agro Nigeria / Foluke Ibitomi