Small holder women farmers in Nasarawa State have appealed to the government to prioritise challenges being faced by women farmers in Nasarawa state and Nigeria in general to boost food production.
They made this appealed at a one day Agric Show organised by Young Men’s Christian Association, Mada Hills in collaboration with Oxfam on Wednesday in Lafia.
Our Correspondent reports that YMCA Mada Hills is implementing Together Against Poverty (TAP2) project in Nasarawa state.
The One day Agric Show with the theme: “Women as Key Actors for Economic Development” aimed at celebrating the role of women farmers to food security and development in Nasarawa state
Small holder women farmers lamented that they faced a lot of challenges ranging from lack of access to credit facility, farm inputs such as fertilisers, herbicides to farm implements from Government to boost their production.
Mrs Felicia Micah, Chairperson, Association of Small Scale Agro Producers in Nigeria, Nasarawa Eggon Chapter, said middlemen made it difficult for small holder women farmers to have direct access to subsidized government farming inputs.
She appealed to the government to create links to have access directly to small holder women farmers instead of dealing with middlemen who always hoard and sold farm inputs at a higher price to farmers.
Mrs Patricia Onoja, Chemical Engineer and Food Processor, said even though she had passion to process seasoning food to reduce wastages, it took a lot of savings to purchase equipment to realize her dream.
She appealed to government to come to the aid of women farmers so as to increase their production to ensure food sufficiency in Nasarawa state and Nigeria at large.
Speaking earlier, Mr Ango Adamu, YMCA Mada Hills, Executive Secretary said Agric Show was organised in recognition of the role of women in contributing to agriculture in Nasarawa state.
According to him, YMCA brought about 250 women farmers from grass roots, farmers organisations, NGOs, government agencies for them to exhibit, interact, and ask questions and exchange ideas so that they could learn from one another.
“That is our primary reason we are doing this, and we are doing this to increase women visibility. We want their voices and issues affecting them to be heard, they do a lot of works unrecognised, we feel women should participate in agriculture,” he said.
The Agric Show featured lecture and presentation of awards to crops production, lives stocks and foods processing farming in Nasarawa state.