Women
farmers under the umbrella of Small-Scale Women Farmers Organisation in
Nigeria (SWOFON) have called for restoration of scrapped Growth
Enhancement Scheme (GES) scheme.
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| Rice Farmers |
They made the call at the end of a two-day annual national farmers
forum for smallholder women farmers organised by Actionaid Nigeria, an
NGO.
In separate comments at the event, the women said they lacked access
to improved seeds and other farm inputs, which the GES was meant to
provide.
The scheme was
initiated by the immediate-past Minister of Agriculture, Dr Akinwumi
Adesina, for Nigerian farmers.
GES was a farm support initiative through which registered farmers
had access to quality seeds, fertilisers and agro-chemicals at 50 per
cent subsidised price.
However, the scheme was bedevilled by many challenges, including supply of substandard inputs to farmers.
This prompted the current administration to announce its replacement
with the Agricultural Inputs and Mechanisation scheme (AIMS).
Mrs Ngizan Chahul from Benue said since the GES was scrapped, it had
been difficult for her and other fellow woman farmers to access quality
inputs.
She appealed to the Federal Government to come to their aid by either
restoring GES or ensuring effective implementation of AIMS to boost
productivity.
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She equally urged government to closely monitor its intervention
programmes to ensure that they were not hijacked by “political farmers”.
Mrs Suzan Godwin from Nasarawa State said that women farmers ought to
be involved in the policy formulation process to protect their
interests.
Another participant from Benue, Mrs Bridget Adejo, appealed to the
Federal Government to make the location of silos it recently
established known to them.
This, she said, would enable smallholder farmers to locate and take
advantage of the storage facilities to avoid post-harvest losses.
Another farmer, Mrs Bola Adebayo from Osun, urged government to buy
insurance for farmers who lost their crops to farmers/herders clash and
to also address the situation.
However, Mrs Aisha Abubakar of the FCT Agriculture Development
Project, urged the women not to wait for government to do everything for
them.
Abubakar noted that they could engage the services of extension
workers under the Agricultural Development Programmes (ADPs) in their
respective states.
Mrs Constance Okeke, the SWOFON Board Chairperson, thanked Actionaid
Nigeria for providing the platform and support to the association since
inception.
The forum attracted women farmers from the 36 states of the federation to deliberate on their challenges and to seek solutions.
NAN
