“To Fight Food Poverty In Nigeria, Give Women Equity In Land Ownership”

“To Fight Food Poverty In Nigeria, Give Women Equity In Land Ownership”

When Nigeria’s Agriculture and Rural Development, Minister Audu Ogbeh launched the National Gender Action Plan (NGAP) on Agriculture in October, the idea was to upgrade women from the realm of subsistence farming to medium scale and commercial farming.

The figures provided by the minister at the launch showed that Nigeria has 95% subsistence farmers, 50% of whom are women. Beyond this, women farmers in Nigeria have to contend with unequal access to land, insecurity, cultural practices and pseudo-religion dogmas.

“Despite the huge labour investment of women, productivity is low and they often have limited roles in decision making on the farms. Lack of ownership of land and other productive assets due to existing social norms has created a significant negative impact on the family income and the nation’s GDP at large,’’ said Nigeria Country Director, African Development Bank, Mr Ousmane Dore.

Agriculture is the cornerstone of the Nigerian economy, regarded as the largest sector which employs two-thirds of the nation’s human capital thereby providing the major source of livelihood for most citizens.

The Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Sunny Echono, said women are the focal point of agricultural production, processing, marketing and utilisation in the country.

“Women supply 70 percent of agricultural labour; 50 percent of animal husbandry related activities and 60 percent of food processing, yet they have access to only 20 percent of available agricultural resources.”

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