Women farmers decry lack of access agric fund

Plateau State chapter of the Small-Scale Women Farmers of Nigeria (SWOFON) has cried out over lack of access to various agricultural intervention funds provided by the Federal Government to farmers across the country.


Mrs. Mary Afan, Plateau State chapter president of SWOFON, who disclosed this while addressing women farmers at a seminar in Jos, the state capital, said it has been impossible for members to access agriculture fund.

She said, “As women farmers, it has been impossible to access the Federal Government agric fund. There is hardly adequate information to women on how to access the fund and other advantages provided by both state and federal governments.”

SWOFON is a coalition of smallholder women farmers who are engaged in agricultural activities especially farming and have formed cooperatives groups across the country. Women farmers are not often involved in decision making and policy formulation at federal, state and local government levels, which is why women are not carried along in agric programmes in the country, the group lamented. 

According to a statement released by SWOFON at the end of the seminar, women constitute between 60 and 80 percent of the agro labour force in the country, yet women farmers have no access to credit facilities, inputs, training and crop insurance, among others.

“Women farmers are hardly considered to be given allocation of fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides, feeds, seeds and seedlings. No capital, poor awareness, poor skills and technical support, poor excess to marker due to bad roads, and several other challenges.


“Our predicament as women farmers originally began with access to land for farming, traditional, women in Nigeria have no right to land, land belongs to the men and women remain tenants in our own country. Even when we rent land to farm, women are so unsecured on the farm. We are being raped on our farms by men, we are being killed on the farm, this is more peculiar to states like Plateau where cattle grazers and farmers are at loggerheads,” Afan said.

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