….as women farmers demand timely release of budget

By Gabriel Ewepu

ABUJA – AS food production remains in the front burner, ActionAid Nigeria, AAN, Tuesday, called on the Federal and State Governments to increase agricultural budget to boost food production.

The Deputy Country Director, AAN, Suwaiba Dankabo, made the call in a welcome and opening remark, at the closeout of the Scaling Up of Public Investments in Agriculture, (SUPIA II) Project Learning meeting held in Abuja.

Dankabo explained that the SUPIA II Project was implemented by ActionAid Nigeria and ActionAid International, “designed to promote the scale up of public investments in agriculture, both political and budget commitment to drive inclusive, lasting agricultural transformation at the state, National and Continental levels.”

According to her, “the Project started from July 2022 to December 2025 “at the national level and eight focal states; Bauchi, Gombe, Ondo, Kwara, Kogi, Ebonyi, Delta, and Federal Capital Territory, FCT.”

According to her, “A core focus of the project has been to improve the productivity, livelihoods, and overall well-being of smallholder women farmers, through targeted
advocacy for increased, inclusive, and gender-responsive public investment in agriculture.

Meanwhile, speaking on the strategic engagement with federal and state governments, regional and continental
institutions, civil society organisations, and farmer networks, she said “the project has recorded remarkable milestones.

“Today’s gathering offers a strategic moment to reflect on our collective journey, distil critical lessons, share effective practices, and chart pathways for sustaining and scaling the gains recorded under SUPIA II project.

“It is also an opportunity to reaffirm our shared responsibility to
ensure that public investments translate into tangible, equitable, and lasting impacts for farmers,
especially women, young people and persons with disabilities.”

On the sidelines of the closeout meeting of the Project, the International Project Manager, SUPIA, Project, ActionAid International, Constance Okeke, underscored the success recorded under the project, however, called on States to upscale budgetary allocations to agriculture and also to impact positively on the real farmers.

“When we started the whole process of this journey, like I said, SUPIA is a sequel of the public financing for agriculture. We started by 2011, prior to that time, you hardly would hear much about agriculture in the public domain.

“It was not even treated as one of the key focus areas but at least this current government, for example, has made agriculture a priority focus.

“While they might not have reached the 10 per cent, you could see increases, innovations, and ideas. So the only thing we are saying is, let us turn these policy rhetorics into action. There is improvement, but we want more to be done.

“We want more investment to be done in those specific areas. This Project has helped create that platform where there are interfaces between the smallholder farmers and the government. We have tried to bridge that gap.

“So you see women farmers are being able to visit the ministries, especially for Ministry of Agriculture. Women saying that these days, when there is anything coming up in the ministry, they call them because they know they are in existence, have structure, and whatever that is given to them would get down to everybody that belongs to that group.

“Some of them testify to getting support, inputs, training, opportunities, even access to small credits, even land from the government, and it’s an opportunity to open up to do more.

“So states that are not doing well in terms of agricultural investment, should take it as a cue or a clarion call for them to do more because collectively we can make our country more food secure and nutrition secure”, she stated.

The Food Systems Specialist, AAN, Azubike Nwokoye, while speaking on their reflections about the Project and lessons learnt in order to improve on their engagements and working with smallholder women farmers, young people, the media and other stakeholders said “to make sure that there is continual increase in budgetary allocation and also quality of public expenditure in terms of releases because these releases, we have all been faced with the challenges of lack of releases most times. So we are taking a lot of learnings. So those are the things we hope that we scale up going forward.”

Meanwhile, the Coordinator, Smallscale Women Farmers Organization of Nigeria, SWOFON, Comfort Sunday, said the SUPIA Project had positively improved the business of women farmers in FCT, and also given them a status of stakeholders in the agric space.

However, Sunday called on the government on timely release of budget to ensure seamless cultivation of their crops according to the planting seasons.

“We are asking the government to do more, especially this budget, there should be timely release of the budge because without releasing the budget in time, we cannot plan our production.

“We also lack extension officers, therefore, government needs to increase the number of extension workers because they are like our teachers on best agricultural practices.

“The government should upscale fight against against terrorists and bandits who have made our farms including our backyards, we cannot go and do anything”, Sunday said.