Women are yet to benefit from agricultural transformation
Comrade Esther Audu is the President, Women in Agriculture Cooperative Federation and the Accelerated Rice Farmers Cooperative Unit in Kogi State. In this interview with she spoke on the accelerated rice production and challenges of women farmers. Excerpts:
Wthe state? hy is accelerated rice production instead dwindling in
No at all, instead the production is improving. When we started in 2012, we could not get much because it was a new programme but what we got the following year was higher and in 2014, our yields were more than the previous year’s. In 2015, I believe we would achieve much more than the previous years. Right now, apart from what the state government is doing in accelerated rice production, the federal government is also supporting farmers in the states.
The Accelerated Farmers’ Cooperative Union in the state was formed on the directive of the federal government which asked us to mobilise rural farmers and form cooperatives so that they can assist us with loans and we have formed eight cooperatives now. It is because of this that I told you that we would have 100 percent yield this time. So the production of rice is not going down in the state.
What are the challenges facing rice farmers in the state?
Every good thing must have challenges, the challenges that we are facing now are the weather condition because last season we experienced dryness leading to lack of water on the farms. Secondly, quelea birds attack our farms, was so enormous that farmers were crying over their losses. Some farmers that were expecting about 100 bags could not get 20 bags. Another major challenge is lack of funds because many of us have spent a lot of money on rice farming believing that we would get the money back at harvest period but our expectations were dashed. But now, the federal government has promised to help rice farmers access fund and we are hoping that it would be a dream come true.
But the government said it is helping farmers through irrigation and other incentives?
Yes, but the way we are going about it in this state is not helping the situation because where the rice farms are located is very far from the River Niger and with that it would be difficult work. The irrigation will only work when water is channeled from the river to the farms and farmers have no money to make the irrigation work on their own. Most of the irrigation talk is only on papers. At Okumi farms, where the rice farms are located, in the first year, government channelled water from the River Niger but by the second year, the channels were filled with sand and government did not clear the channels. Last year, some farmers ran away from the area due to lack of water for the crops.
We were using water pumping machines but they were not enough and because the farmlands were not fully leveled, water cannot circulate everywhere. If the government wants to help the farmers, they should level the farm land very well so that water can flow all over the farm because we experienced that even when we pump water into the farm, most
of it still goes back to the river.
How about the inputs?
We get inputs through the Growth Enhancement Scheme (GES), because some of us were registered three years ago under the programme. So every year we get our inputs through the GES, But our problem with the GES is when the time comes, they only give two weeks for us to redeem the inputs, like ready to farm but the reason some of us are getting weak is that women are not benefiting much from the agricultural transformation the way we expected. We only hear about loans here and there but we have never gotten the loan; we only keep hearing that women are getting loan from the governmentý. We are not getting loan from the government here except the one that we arranged by ourselves. When we started this rice farm, we spent our money believing that we would be able to access loan but till this moment we have not been able to.
But recently, the state government said it was giving loan worth N750 million to farmers?
We are still expecting the loan. I could remember when the forms were out, those that were collecting them were not farmers and we voiced out that farmers are not being carried along in the collection of the forms. Then, Governor Idris Wada stopped the process and told the Ministry of Agriculture that real farmers must be carried along and it was as a result of this that more forms were printed and we were able to obtain the forms. And immediately after that, the commissioner left and a new one was appointed but the new commissioner now said he wanted the real farmers to be carried along and that the money cannot be disbursed the way it was initially arranged and that it is going to be N100,000 per farmerý. But till this moment, we are yet to get anything and we don’t know whether it is the bank that is delaying the loan or the Ministry of Agriculture.
What about the loan from the federal government?
We are the ones directly in charge of that loan for accelerated rice farmers’ cooperative. We have all collected the forms with over 2,000 farmers applying for the loan. We are the ones holding ourselves on this because we have been given a letter of offer from Sterling Bank. The reason I said we are the ones holding ourselves is because of the equity contribution. We are to pay 25 percent equity contribution and we have talked to the bank which agreed on 10 percent and that 10 percent is not easy for us to get. The minimum loan to apply for is N500,000 and 10 percent of it is N50,000.
The period we are now is difficult because we are looking for children’s school fees. We have talked to the government to help us pay the equity contribution but that has not yielded any result yet. The loan is from the Central Bank hence any time we pay our equity contribution we would get it.
What is your advice to women farmers?
My advice to women, men and youth farmers is that government or no government agriculture must move on and so we should prepare to take agriculture as business. Let us all rise to support agriculture to create employment for all. I also call on the government to redeem all the pledges it made. Thought both the federal and state governments have tried in agriculture but they have not moved us to the desired point, they should take agriculture as number one and also increase budget allocation to agriculture.