World Food Day: SWOFON Outline Impediments to Food Security, Receive Stakeholders' Commendation.
Agricultural stakeholders in Ebonyi State have commended the Smallholder Women Farmers Organization in Nigeria for their contributions towards achieving food sufficiency in the state.
The commendation was given at a one day stakeholders interactive meeting and Agricultural product exhibition in retrospective celebration of the World Food Day, 2024.
It was held Monday in Abakaliki, Ebonyi State capital.
The event was organised by a Civil Society Organization, Participatory Development Alternatives under her project, Scaling Up Public Investment in Agriculture, with support from Actionaid-Nigeria.
In separate speeches at the event, Charles Okorie, Director of Nutrition, State Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources and his counterpart, the Director of Extension Services, Ebonyi State Agricultural Development Programme, Regina Oroke, expressed delight over the activities of the Smallholder Women Farmers Organization in Nigeria and the PDA which has continued to assist greatly in providing food to the homes of Ebonyi Citizens.
Oroke said: "We appreciate the efforts of the SWOFON and PDA in eradicating hunger and poverty which is in alarming rate in Nigeria.
"The PDA has remained a great partner in training, mentoring and monitoring of Smallholder Women farmers in the state, and availing them the needed assistance to ensure there is food on the table for the people.
"These efforts has also boosted the economy of the women and the state while prospecting food security in the state and Nigeria in general."
Okorie who represented the State Commissioner for Agriculture, Nkechinyere Iyioku-Ezeani, said Governor Nwifuru was committed to improving Investment in Agriculture.
"We want to assure you that the present government in the state is committed to eradicating hunger and poverty in the state", he added.
Meanwhile, Some of the SWOFON members interviewed including the State Coordinator, Chinyere Agbafor, and the PRO, Nnenna Ibiam, identified climate change, insecurity in farms, land saturation and unhealthy political interferences as major impediments to achieving food security in the country.
They also identified delay in release of farm inputs from government, lack of access to Agricultural credits, lack of storage facilities, among others as contributory factors.
Ibiam said: " It is not really that farmers are not doing much, but things are changing with time.
"When you talk of climate change, it is one of the contributors; you also talk about insecurity and other internal issues like late distribution of farm inputs.
"In some places, women no longer go to farms for fear of being raped or even killed by bandits.
"Generally, the system is changing whereby land is no longer yielding her increase because in most places, land is getting saturated.
Politics is also one big factor affecting us because of undue interference in processes by office holders and inconsistencies in policies and programmes occasioned by frequent changes in government."
The Program Manager, PDA, Ugochi Joseph, said the target of the meeting which brought together the women farmers, State Ministry of Agriculture and the CSOs was to fashion collective ways of achieving food security in the state particularly, and the nation in general.
She advocated intensive training for the women farmers on Agroecology which would build their capacity in the use of organic fertilizers in food production.
She also urged the government to increase budgetary allocation to Agriculture, give specific and greater attention to Smallholder Women farmers as gateways to achieving food security in the country.
She added that the emphasis on Smallholder Women farmers stem from the fact that about 80% of farmers in Nigeria rural communities are mainly women.
Resource persons at the event: a nutrition expert and Coordinator, Women in Agriculture, Chidinma Obi-Okoye, and the Director of Nutrition, Ministry of Agriculture, Charles Mkpuma Okorie, educated the women on Importance of nutrition and Promoting Citizens' right to food, respectively.
World Food Day is observed October 16, every year.
It is a day set aside to promote global awareness towards eradication of hunger, malnutrition and poverty.