In October 2019, the Federal Government of Nigeria launched the National Gender Policy in Agriculture (NGPA), to give women farmers across the country more access to farming inputs and enhance their participation in the agricultural sector. At the event, the then Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Mohammed Nanono, said the scheme was expected to drastically reduce the vulnerability of women to biases in agriculture, address the unequal gender power relation and bridge gender gap. Two years down the line, many women farmers, some of whom are struggling widows, are yet to feel the impact of the policy and other government efforts as they are still bedeviled by most of the challenges the NGPA was meant to address.
INNOCENT DURU reports that budgetary allocations to the women farmers are also nothing to write home about, thus they lack the resources to deal with the myriad of challenges militating against their productivity.
Hannah Olaniyan is a graduate of Computer Science from Lagos State University (LASU). From childhood, she had nursed a keen interest in farming. For her, it was not out of place for her love for agriculture to grow stronger as she was rounding off her studies. Sadly, however, her fervor encountered a setback after she graduated. Her bid to access a piece of land for farming yielded no result.
Not willing to give up on her long-term dream of becoming a farmer, she journeyed from Lagos to Osun State to lease a piece of land on which she started planting cucumber. To maintain the farm, she had to regularly crisscross Lagos and Osun states, yet she remained undaunted because of her determination to make a success of her farming business.
Unfortunately, the modest success she recorded suffered a reversal last year when the government suddenly declared a nationwide lockdown to curb the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.
She said: “I started from Osun State where I rented five acres of land to plant cucumber. But I left the place because of the lockdown restrictions.
“One thing about the kind of crop I planted is that it needed regular attention. So, you can’t just stay away for three days without attending to the farm.
“If you stay away for a long time, you will automatically lose whatever you have planted. That was the major reason I lost my investment in that particular farm.
“I actually reside in Lagos. And there was also restriction of movement at the same time. So, it was practically impossible for me to travel to Osun State.
“That was how I lost over N2 million just like that. It was, and it is still heartbreaking for me to go back to that farm. I know that I won’t see anything that will bring me one tenth of my investment on the farm.”
Ordinarily, Hannah’s initial loss on the Osun State farm should discourage her, but her undying love for agriculture was soon recharged. This time, she got another piece of land from land owners at FESTAC village, a residential area in Lagos, hoping to use it for farming before they would develop it.
But Hannah realises the risk involved in the new arrangement since the land owners can decide at any time to develop the land and kick her out.
She said: “They could give about one-month notice to the farmer to remove whatever she has on the land. In fact, the owner could come at any time even if the farmer has just planted the crops. The farmer will then have to go elsewhere.
“Nothing is certain for us farming here. That is why many people get discouraged and leave for other businesses.”
In rainy seasons, Hannah and her fellow farmers also face the risk of drowning as the scaffold, which is the wooden bridge which they use to access the farm, often gets submerged.
“The danger is, you don’t get to see the bridge when it gets covered with water, let alone knowing where to place your feet. At this period, we usually come in through another community, which is a longer route,” she said.
However, Hannah’s is just one of the numerous challenges confronting women farmers. Not a few female farmers are still confronted with the age-long problem of not getting the land to farm on, besides lack of access to modern farming equipment and fertilizer, among others.
The Small Scale Women Farmers of Nigeria (SWOFON) had previously submitted to the federal government a document titled ‘SWOFON Charter of Demand and Manifesto’. The document contained a list of their demands which they believe will address their predicament if implemented.
The demands include access to soft loan from the government, provision of gender friendly machinery for increased productivity, supply and access to free/subsidised farming inputs like fertilisers, chemicals, pesticides, construction of good road networks for easy access to markets, among others.
Till date, most of these demands are yet to be met.
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