ActionAid wants women formers interest captured in budgets

From Omale Adama, Lokoja

The Programme Director, ActionAid Nigeria in Kogi state, Mr Victor Adejoh has called on Federal and states ministries of agriculture to capture the interests of small scale women farmer in their planning and budget proposals.

Speaking in an interview with correspondents in Lokoja on Sunday, he said such a measure would enable them access credits and grants easily as a body and increases their interest participation in agricultural activities.

Mr Adejoh who doubles as the Executive Director of a nongovernmental organisation, Participation Initiative for Behavioural Change in Development (PIBCID), opined that although small-holder women farmer operated on small scale, “they occupy strategic position in the value chain of food production”

“Government in its planning process should ensure that these people are captured.

“Let government’s budget in agriculture be sensitive, responsive and to the needs of small holder women farmer that are in their various communities”, he said.

He observed that small-holder farmers operated in groups, farming on small parcels of land and required little funds to accomplish their goals and as such should not be equated with commercial farmers.

He asserted that rather than granting loans to small-holder farmers, and placing them in the same class with commercial farmers, they should be assisted with grants.

Mr Adejoh also called on government to provide adequate security for both small holder and commercial women farmer against nauseating attacks by herdsmen and hoodlums.

According to him, there have been instances of women farmer being butchered or raped in addition to many other atrocities being perpetrated against them on their farms by the marauding beasts.

The Programme Director also suggested that police posts be established every seven kilometres within community settlements, to enable timely report of criminal activities against rural farmers.