A group of small-scale women farmers have rejected the use of simple farm tool in exchange for mechanised agricultural machinery to increase the productivity of farm workers.
Under the aegis of Small-Scale Women Farmers Organization in Nigeria (SWOFON), the group declared that women farmers will not longer carry out farming activities with hoes and cutlass during a 3-day programme in Abuja.
The group visited the Cyprian Ekwensi Centre for Arts and Culture Abuja to retire their hoes and cutlasses as artefacts, noting that the lockdown imposed earlier in the year dealt a hard blow on female farmers.
According to Mary Afan, SWOFON president, the use of hoes is now irrelevant and can longer help women farmers in achieving the best result.
“This hoe can no longer feed us as farmers talk less of feeding the nation, so we want to tell the government that we are retiring this hoe to the museum and that we need mechanized farming to be able to increase production in our farmer and based on our population and what we do, we are sure that with mechanized tools, we can even feed the whole of Africa.
“During the Covid-19 lockdown, many of the women farmers across the states could not access their farmlands due to the restriction of movement imposed by both the federal and state governments.
“This led to various degrees of losses on their respective farms. Similarly, the closure of all markets meant that women farmers could not earn money from the sales of their farm products,” she said.
In the same vein, Grace Osadojo, the organisation’s secretary noted that the most painful of the encounters of the women farmers across the country were the activities of kidnappers, bandits, and terrorist groups like the Boko Haram.
“As of today, many women farmers are afraid of going to their farmlands for fear of being kidnapped, raped, extorted by bandits, and killed like the ones recorded in Borno state,” she said.
Stakeholders present at the stakeholders meeting include a representative of the federal ministry of Agriculture, Nigeria Agricultural Insurance Corporation (NAIC), FCTA Department of Agriculture, state government officials, among others.
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