World Bank, FG Want Increased Finance for Women Farmers

World Bank

By: Abimbola Akosile

The World Bank, in partnership with the Federal Government, has moved to enhance greater access to finance for female farmers in Nigeria.

To achieve this aim, the global financial institution is organising a Technical Dialogue on Gender and Agriculture today (May 2) in Abuja; following innovative data and research on women’s participation in the agriculture sector in Nigeria that has been developed in the past year.

According to the bank, in a release, as the main economic activity in the country, 57 per cent of households in Nigeria are categorised as agriculture households.
The bank also noted that women are often responsible for the majority of the farming tasks of processing, transportation and harvesting of crops, while clearing and planting are dominated by men. Men and women are in different and complementary levels of the agricultural value chains, it added.

The research work done by the World Bank and the Government of Nigeria has come as a response to the recommendations that came out of the Gender Policy Dialogue, organised in May/June 2012 by the Federal Government, the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DfID) and the World Bank.

“Although 35 per cent of women are employed in the agriculture sector and 44 per cent of the country’s female headed households are involved in agriculture activities, only 18 per cent of rural plots are managed by female farmers” said the World Bank Country Director to Nigeria, Marie Francoise Marie-Nelly.

“Boosting women’s agricultural productivity in Nigeria will require not only giving women access to land, but more critically improved access to finance as well as valuable information”, she added.

Despite clear challenges, the bank noted that Nigerian women are making progress in the agriculture sector. “For example, women produce 16 per cent less in value terms than men per hectare of cultivated land. Yet, this overall figure masks regional differences. Though the gap in productivity between male and female plot managers remains marked at the national level, it has been successfully closed in some parts of the country.”

In Northern Nigeria, women produce 28 per cent less than men, which is in line with estimates from other countries in Africa. In the southern part of the country, however, overall figures for female farmers look quite different from the rest of the continent: there is no difference in how much they produce per hectare as compared to men, according to the bank.
The Technical Dialogue on Gender and Agriculture aims to: disseminate the latest quantitative and qualitative data and research on gender and agriculture in Nigeria. The data and research that will be presented will include a descriptive report on women’s role in agriculture in Nigeria using the new agricultural data in the General Household Survey.

There will also be an analysis of male and female differences in agricultural productivity that uncovers the factors that are associated with lower female agricultural productivity to identify key areas for policy interventions; and an analysis of the effects of CDD interventions in the agriculture sector on women’s economic empowerment.

The dialogue will also provide an opportunity for debate amongst Government officials, civil society and private sector organisations and development partners on how that data and research can help define and operationalise gender interventions in the agriculture sector.
According to the bank, “There is considerable scope to increase women’s control over farm land: plots remain overwhelmingly managed by men with only 18 per cent of rural plots that are managed by female farmers.”

“The full potential of Nigerian female farmers will only be tapped if their common challenges and different experiences across regions and social groups are fully acknowledged by agriculture programmes” said Gender Practice Leader, World Bank, Markus Goldstein.