By Chinyere Anyanwu, [email protected]

A new report has shown that Nigeria’s smallholder women farmers have access to less than 23 per cent  of existing credit facilities and only 4.77 per cent access to agricultural insurance across the country. 

Speaking at the National Dialogue & Dissemination on Nigeria’s Performance at the 3rd Biennial Review Exercise on the Implementation of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) in Abuja, the Country Director, ActionAid Nigeria (AAN), Ene Obi, said the report was obtained through the Value Addition Biennial Review Toolkit (VABKIT) that reflected the lived realities of smallholder women farmers across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

She said that smallholder women farmers currently have only 18 per cent  access to processing facilities, 16.60 per cent access to storage facilities, 13.50 per cent access to off-takers/access to markets, 9.60 per cent access to transportation for agricultural produce, and 42.30 per cent access to trainings. 

She added: “On extension services, smallholder women farmers have access to only 5.26 per cent  farm demonstrations and 19.47 per cent  farmers field schools. On agricultural credit, they have access to less than 23 per cent  of existing credit facilities, and only 4.77 per cent access to agricultural insurance. 

“On access to and control over land, about 59 per cent of them have access to land, 29.77 per cent have control, while only 11.23 per cent  are engaged in land governance discussions.” 

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For Nigeria to be on track to meeting the 2014 Malabo Declaration Commitments and attain food security, the three tiers of government must commit 10 per cent of their annual budget to the agriculture sector required to support at least six per cent growth rate for the sector as postulated in the CAADP framework, says AAN. 

She, therefore, described the current budgetary allocation to agriculture sector as shame while a country like Rwanda is doing more than Nigeria in this regard, adding that investments should focus on strategic areas of extension services, access to credit, women in agriculture, youth in agriculture, appropriate labour-saving technologies, inputs, post-harvest losses reduction, supports (processing facilities, storage facilities, trainings, market access, etc.), Climate Resilient Sustainable Agriculture (CRSA)/agroecology, research and development, monitoring and evaluation, as well as coordination. 

She said, “while government is making effort to improve the space for more Public Private Partnership arrangements in Nigeria’s agriculture sector, smallholder women farmers’ access to such schemes across the country remains below 27 per cent.

“We have been using the above data/information that reflected the lived realities of smallholder women farmers in our various policy influencing spaces where we are pushing the gaps as priority areas of where scaling up public investment in agriculture is urgently needed in agriculture budgets and programmes both at the national and state levels.”

According to her,  AAN used the data at the national and state levels’ annual stakeholders consultative meetings on the agriculture budget, Small Scale Women Farmers Organisation in Nigeria (SWOFON) state level interactive forums with Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), and courtesy and advocacy meetings with state permanent secretaries and commissioners of ministries of agriculture, budget, and economic planning.