Actionaid seeks Central Bank’s support for women farmers

ACTIONAID Nigeria has appealed to the Central Bank of Nigeria ( CBN) and financial institutions to scale up the provision of loan facilities to women farmers, who have been described as making up 60 per cent of players in the agriculture sector.

Actionaid Food and

Agriculture Programme Coordinator, Azubike Nwokoye, made the call during a roundtable on access to agricultural credit for smallholder women farmers.

He said poor access to credit has impeded the productivity of women farmers who are major drivers of the sector.

He also said it had become imperative to call on the Federal Government to consider policies that would ameliorate the challenges experienced by women farmers.

According to him, the CBN, Bank of Agriculture, Bank of

Industry and commercial banks must pay attention to addressing the challenge of poverty reduction in the country.

He said: “That is why one of the strong recommendations is that the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and the State Ministry of Agriculture should create a budget plan, a yearly budget plan on strengthening access to credit.

“The yearly budget will help. If it is consultants that FMARD will get to support different women cooperatives to be able to access the available funding. The process will ensure that other services will be accessed, given the right support. They should be able to pay on time.

“Due to the security situation in the country and even issues of climate change, paying back the loan could be difficult. That is why we mentioned agricultural insurance to go hand- inhand with the credit facilities.”