women-farmer – Source: AfDB Janet Ogundepo Women farmers constitute about 17.5 per cent of the farming population in Nigeria. Despite their significant presence, they struggle to access land, work with limited farm implements, and receive little or no access to loans and government agricultural interventions.
Lately, they face the greatest fears that inhibit their ability to help ameliorate the rising hunger in the country – being killed, kidnapped, and raped on their farms. Janet Ogundepo writes. Globally, women make up the backbone of the agriculture sector but face a myriad of challenges that include limited support and lack of land ownership, which limits the impact they can have on the sector, making their toil on the land underreported, especially in Nigeria’s patriarchal structures.
These and many more of such challenges were what Airudia Mamman, a middle-aged farmer battled with for years to break even. For this female farmer, rising from bed before the first light of dawn has been a daily ritual for her. This long-standing habit, ingrained in her since she was a teen, has become second nature as her body clock has been so primed to ensure she gets up at exactly that time to see to the day’s activities.
Coming from a family of farmers in Gombe State, farming naturally became a vocation for Mamman, who is now a smallholder farmer growing maize, beans, and other crops. Mamman Despite her love for farming, she manages to balance it with schooling, thriving to ens.