The She Farmers Initiative, a group for women in agriculture, has called on female farmers to work in clusters in order to thrive in the Nigerian space.
The National President of the She Farmers Initiative, Mrs Temitope Ande, made the call in Lagos.
The She Farmers Initiative is a Nigerian-based organisation dedicated to empowering women-led agricultural businesses, promoting gender equity, and enhancing food security.
It focuses on transitioning rural women from subsistence farming to profitable commercial agribusiness through training, modern technology, and improved inputs, aiming to empower 10 million women.
Ande noted that most women farmers were located in rural areas, prompting the need for them to work in clusters in order to thrive in the sector.
“Data overtime has revealed that over 70 per cent of women farmers operate in the agric. ecosystem and the majority of them are in the primary production.
“These women are in the rural environment, they are in the extreme of the country, they are in remote places and because that is where you can actually find available farms in commercial quantities.
“So, for us at She Farmers, the process we are adopting to help women farmers thrive is to adopt cluster farming. We have different tribes, different crops given the geographic content of the soil , so we have different crops that thrive in them. Most women farmers also produce commodities or crops that align with their regions. When they come together in clusters in that area, they can operate and thrive together thus increasing productivity,” Ande said.
She reiterated the need for women farmers to collaborate in order to enjoy joint interventions from the government and stakeholders.
“So, we must identify women farmers in that ecosystem, get a large expanse of farmland where they can co-thrive.
“It is that kind of environment and collaboration that they can get support, both financially and technology intervention. With a larger ecosystem of women farmers, they can have easy access to land, to right inputs, and access to technologies that will enable them in land preparation, and subsequently increase their production”.
“To have access to tractors to clear virgin lands for crop cultivation is quite expensive but when these women come together in clusters they will be able to afford these tractors to plough, harrow and prepare the land in a short period. If 20 women farmers come together to clear about 100 hectares of land for cultivation, it will be less cost intensive,” the president said.
According to her, women farmers working alone is not beneficial for them, they cannot grow that way.
“The only way it works is when we have commercial farmlands run by maybe a single woman, corporate organisations that are women based or a corporate team.
“Women farmers need to operate in clusters, so that they can enjoy agronomy group support, even in terms of harvesting women need to work in clusters.
“Farming is not just only in planting but management after planting is very important.
“At the rate at which the population is increasing, we must also change our model of processing or producing food, so that it will meet the increasing population demands.
“We must empower women farmers because 80 per cent them are directly inviting ensuring food security in the country,” she said.
