Nigerian female farmers raise their voice

In addition to gender-insensitive laws and limited access to land, the situation of women farmers in Nigeria is not helped by the drudgery and physical demands of rural farming and having to combine this with caring for families. Now, they’ve found a voice to challenge the status-quo.

Nigeria is grappling with an unprecedented level of food insecurity. Women, who constitute more than 70% of the labour force in the food chain, are severely hampered by a multiplicity of factors — insecurity, exclusion, weak laws and ineffective enforcement of even these weak ones. As Tommy Odemwingie highlights in this article, female farmers have decided to confront the monsters undermining their agricultural pursuits.

Faith Debaniyu Ibrahim is a Professor of Agricultural Economics and Farm Management at the Federal University of Technology Minna, Niger State, Nigeria. In a keynote address at an event organised by recently founded Nigerian Women for Agricultural Progress (NWAP) in Abuja, in March 2024, she postulated that gender-based marginalisation of women in policies and decisions fostered by unwritten norms and traditions was one of the factors limiting women’s agricultural productivity. She also highlights the factor of a legal system spanning the customary laws of Southern Nigeria and the Sharia law of the Northern part of the country that concentrates too much power in the federal system at the expense of subnational levels of governance, where these laws would be more effective.

Faith Ibrahim, professor of agricultural economics, Federal University of Technology, Minna

And although the “National Gender Profile of Agriculture and Rural Livelihoods – Nigeria Country Gender Assessment Series” jointly published by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Commission in 2018 underlines actions to redress it, the weight of limited access to land remains on women. There have not been any significant changes in women’s capacity to influence agricultural policies at national and subnational levels.

Women also face barriers in accessing quality seeds. In an article published in January 2024, entitled “Transforming Nigerian female farmers’ lives through soybean and cowpea production to alleviate poverty” on its website, the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), based in Ibadan, Nigeria, notes that “Small-scale farming is the backbone of global food production, contributing to approximately 80 percent of the world’s food supply. This sector ensures food security and serves as a vital source of employment, especially for women. On average, women constitute 43 per cent of the agricultural labour force in developing countries; in some nations, they form the majority. Across sub-Saharan Africa, women play a crucial role in agriculture. However, men dominate the agricultural labour force in Nigeria, accounting for over 70 per cent. Unfortunately, female farmers often face productivity challenges compared to their male counterparts.”

The article highlights some of the several challenges that women farmers face to include:

• Unequal access: Women encounter barriers in accessing quality seeds and other essential inputs. This inequality hampers their agricultural productivity.

• Knowledge gap: Limited access to information and training affects women’s ability to adopt modern farming techniques and best practices.

• Cultural norms: Sociocultural norms restrict women’s mobility and decision-making power, impacting their effectiveness in farming activities.

• Time constraints: Women primarily engage in post-harvest handling and processing of crops like cowpea and soybean. These responsibilities limit their time for direct cultivation.

Excluding women “in their own interest”

Many different examples show how women still suffer from disadvantage and exclusion.

As in numerous regions, in Urhonigbe, Edo state, women’s involvement in agriculture is not matched by the space to take related decisions. At the onset of a planting season, different community clusters of farmers have to hold customary meetings to allocate portions of the community’s land to members according to individual capacities and pedigrees. However, no woman is involved in any of the meetings or in the land allocation missions.

A member of the community, Osazuwa Aigbekaen, a male, rationalises the exclusion of women from teams that handle land sharing, arguing: “It’s a very tasking exercise. It lasts for several days and involves wading through bushes to carve out land portions. It will have to be a heartless community that subjects its women to such an arduous exercise.” And then he throws the bombshell: “It’s in their own interest to be excused from it. Are women complaining? No woman has ever raised any issue on this.”

A woman processing agricultural produce in Nigeria

The situation of women is not helped by the drudgery and physical demands of rural farming and having to combine this with caring for families. With schools and health facilities not located around farming communities, millions of children miss out on an education and are susceptible to epidemics. Several factors, including epileptic electricity supply, high cost and insecurity of rod transportation, lead to women bearing more of the burden of post-harvest losses. In recent times unprecedented numbers of cases have been reported of women and girls being raped on farms with the upsurge of insecurity in several parts of Nigeria.

Laitu, a native Gwari woman farmer in Kuje, narrates how a neighbouring village, Kpavun, was serially ransacked and locals kidnapped. In one night recently, 10 people were kidnapped; in another, 12 were abducted and one killed. Some of the women who survived the ordeal reported having been sexually abused by their abductors. Like Kpavun women, says Laitu, Kuje women have resorted to going in groups of 10-15 to the farm.

Paala Mabala, a woman from Adamawa state, forfeited access to farmland belonging to her erstwhile partner. She then headed with her children for Abuja to continue farming, the only occupation she knows, in the Kuje area, where the scourges of Boko Haram attacks, threats of kidnap and uncertainty of access to farmland have added fuel to her injury.

Empowering Nigerian female farmers

After centuries of their voices being muted under the overbearing male-dominated leadership of farmers’ associations, bright prospects for effective advocacy to redress women’s exclusion seem to be on the horizon. A body known as Nigerian Women for Agricultural Progress (NWAP), led by Omolara Svensson, has risen to the occasion. Launched on the 24th January 2024, NWAP aims to empower Nigerian women through comprehensive support, education, and opportunities. Moreover, it wants to create a landscape where women in agriculture are recognised as key contributors to the nation’s food and economic security.

“We women were not speaking with one voice,” Svensson notes, in reference to motley organisations claiming to be fighting cause of women but not raising the pertinent issues, and with deficits in addressing gender-related issues in agriculture.

Omolara Svensson, president of NWAP

One of NWAP’s immediate priorities was to advocate for the restructuring of the agricultural administration system, Ms. Svensson declared at the inauguration of state coordinators of NWAP in all 36 states and the federal capital territory of Abuja on the 7th March 2024. “It is unfortunate that ministries of agriculture in Nigeria do not have departments for women in agriculture. How then can they fully address the plight of women, who do more than 70 per cent of work in the food chain?” she asks.

Although it has representatives in all the states, the exact strength of its membership is yet unknown, as it creates awareness about its formation and register members, who are expected to be in millions, given Nigeria’s huge female population.

Decisive responses unfolding
In 2019, Nigeria launched the National Gender Policy on Agriculture. With support from the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) under its Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM), the policy promotes the adoption of gender-sensitive and responsive approaches in the agricultural sector, including equal access to and control of productive resources by men and women.

In response to the prevailing food crisis in the country, the Nigerian government has approved 93 per cent subsidies on selected farm inputs to women farmers for the current planting season.

The National Assembly has committed to legislate against practices that exclude women from the processes of policy formation in agriculture. The security agencies, including the Nigerian Police Force, have been placed on the alert to ensure safety of farmers.

*Editor’s Note: This article first appeared in Rural21, the international journal of rural development. www.rural21.com