‘Women constitute 75% Agric workforce but marginalised’
The wife of Ondo State governor, Arabinrin Betty AnyanwuAkeredolu, has said women make up about 75 per cent of the workforce in the agriculture sector, yet they are highly marginalised.
She spoke shortly after she was awarded the ‘Cluster Advocacy Change Champion’ at the inauguration of Agric Gender Friendly Policy Development Technical Working Group in Akure recently.
Mrs Anyanwu-Akeredolu said the inequality brought about some challenges for women farmers including consistent reduction in the budgetary allocation to the agricultural sector in the last seven years and lack of state gender-friendly policies.
In a statement, the governor’s wife said the state government has initiated strategic programmes such as Agriculture Transformation Agenda (ATA) and Development and Policy Implementation Committee report in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) towards eradicating poverty.
The Agro-Women Initiative is the first time ever that a line item in the agriculture budget is dedicated to support smallholder farmers by the state government, she added.
The Cluster Start-Up workshop was organised by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Partnership Initiative in the Niger Delta (PIND) Foundation and Life and Peace Development Organization (LAPDO) to enhance inclusive agricultural governance through smallholder women farmers’ participation in Ondo State.
The Capacity Building Manager of PIND Foundation, Mrs Bose Eitokpa, said the cluster initiative was the first of its kind in the state.
In his analysis, the consultant, Kazeem Balogun, observed that in terms of policies, only 35 per cent of women farmers benefited from one of the numerous empowerment programmes of government and that 82 per cent of women farmers acknowledged benefiting from NGO support programmes as government policies did not make room for people with disability.
He however recommended a new agricultural policy that will give room for new trends and also for deliberate investment to enable capacity building for farmers.
The Special Assistant to the governor on Agriculture, Mr Akin Olotu, said over 2,000 farmers will benefit from the project.