Group Takes Land Use Sensitization to Cross River Women Farmers
A group of rural women farmers have been trained on how to maximize land within their residential premises for subsistence and commercial crop production.
A non-governmental organisation known as Biakwan Light Green Initiative (BLGI) conducted a three day training workshop for selected women farmers in Boki local government area, central Cross River State, southern Nigeria.
The Programme Manager of the initiative, Mr. Boniface Odey, in an interview with Voice of Nigeria, said the training programme was to enable women understand their land tenure rights and encourage sustainable forest management in the community.
Achieving SDG 5
Odey, who said that BLGI was implementing the Global Environment Facility/Small Grants Programme, said “for now the project is to build the capacity of women farmers in Boki local government area on the Land Use Law, which deprives women access to land.
“In this part of the world, women hardly have access to land even for farming. They are made to go through the men to have land, which is contrary to the Sustainable Development Goal 5 that is to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. As an NGO we are focused on ensuring these women have equal rights to economic resources.
“You will agree with me that land is a viable economic resources. It would interest you to know that 60 percent of farmers in the communities are women. Yet, these farmers have no access to the ownership and control of land for agricultural purposes,” he stressed.
According to him, “funding for the project is to support women’s rights, food security and restoration of the Biakwan Community Conserved Area in Boki. The intervention focuses on increasing women’s involvement in forest governance and creating a code of conduct to protect small-scale farmers from societal norms and other factors that hinder their productivity.”
Beneficiary’s experience
One of the participants, Mrs. Helen Asu, who lamented the discrimination against women in land rights and inheritance, said “women in the villages are marginalized and have unequal access to land and property due to the local customs, patriarchy, legal barriers and social norms.
“I really appreciate this training because apart from the knowledge we have gained, the NGO gave us different seedlings that we can plant in the compound and harvest for home use and to sell for money. They taught us how to use the limited space in the yard to plant variety since we cannot have access to forest land like the men for farming,” Asu stressed.
Another participant and woman leader in Biakwan community, Mrs. Rose Bambu said “this programme has been enlightening for all of us. Women can now demand that the rules be amended to enable us to have access to land, which will in turn enhance greater agricultural output, better income and contribute to a safer environment.”
The initiative, which is currently being implemented in Boki local government area, is targeted at 150 rural women farmers and would be extended to other parts of Cross River State.
