Help Women Farmers; Feed the World

women in Agric

A call has gone to organizations investing in agricultural development to take into consideration the untapped role that female farmers can play as they create and implement their programs and policies.

This was made known by the U.S Government’s Hunger and Food Security Initiative, “Feed the Future”, whose main aim is to improve the lives of smallholder farmers by increasing food production, improving nutrition, expanding access to markets, and boosting incomes.

It is a known fact that many our farmers are women who play vital roles in agriculture and food security.

Around the world, female farmers play an important role in agricultural productivity.  However, women in agriculture face many more challenges than their male counterparts, including barriers related to land ownership, access to technology and machinery, training, decision-making powers, and participation in value chains.  As a result, female farmers are unable to reach their full potential.

AgroNigeria International Correspondent reports that this is taken into cognizance, the theme of this year’s International Women Day focused on Women Empowerment and Service to Humanity.

If women farmers who are less productive than men because they have a harder time getting land, tools, credit and training, were to have the same access to these resources as men, they could increase farm yields by 20 to 30 percent.

Bearing this in mind, if the barriers faced by women farmers can be removed, it would boost agricultural output, strengthen women’s abilities to feed themselves and their families, improve their economic situation, and further promote greater global food security.

By empowering rural women — with access to credit, the means to transport crops to market and, most fundamentally, the basic right to make decisions about the use of their land and resources — we will help feed the world and spark important social advances.

Through its Feed the Future initiative and other programs, the United States works to improve agriculture in 19 partner countries in Central America, Africa and South Asia – AgroNigeria Correspondent reports.