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| A rural Nigerian woman farmer |
It may sound crazy, but a
true life story in a 21st century Nigeria. A young man of 35 years by
name, Eze Egbunam, is a publicist for almost half a decade now, in the city of
Lagos, but had cause to visit his village, Umuosite, Awka-North of Anambra
State in South Eastern part of the country, for a family reason, which needed
his physical attention.
After his arrival, his
father, who is blessed with eight children – three females and five male; with
Eze as the eldest, summoned him, very early in the morning of the next day. And
being the custom, he quickly responded with the hope that the meeting would
centre on how he has been managing, given the harshness of the economy, which
is no longer news to most Nigerians including local dwellers made of farmers.
More wives for men:
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| Many wives of Masaba |
But to his
disappointment, after the initial how are you doing between those in the city
and in the villages, his father, diverted the discussion by declaring that he
wanted to marry a second wife. Promptly, Eze asked ‘What do you need that for?’
since his mother is still alive and strong, but his father, Mazi Egbunam’s
response was that he wanted someone to help him in the farm.
Without much ado, Eze’s
voice raised because he is aware both his father and mother who are now farmers
outside their artisan trades, very often had to cultivate certain crops
together, especially cassava and rice for family use and sustenance.
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| 87-yr Alhaji Masaba during one of court sessions for marrying 86 wives |
Eze’s immediate reaction
was to announce to his father the suspension of his subsidy
allowance, usually
sent to him from time to time, as he could not fathom let alone agree with the
reason given by Mazi Egbunam for his choice of second wife.
The above narration
depicts how women are valued in most African countries, even till date and at
this era of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT), women role in
agriculture cannot, therefore, be over-looked for any reason.
Father can’t provide immediate succor
Looking around,
afterwards, Eze took time to count the number of women passing their family
company on their way to the farm or those return from fetching firewords. He
was astonished with the number of women on transit to and from the farm, most
of who attend to the farm with their children, who could not go to school
because they have been asked to get one educational tool like handiwork
exercise or even exercise and text books, which their parent, especially
fathers could not provide immediately and their mother have to take them to the
farm to labour for another villager to be able to work out the money for such
needs to be taken care of.
Then, he began by doing
soul-searching, why most men in olden days marry many wives, and the answers
provided by his own father was for prowess and have children who will attend to
their farm lands, mostly yam barn.
Women still surpass men’s contribution:
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| Some of Alhaji Masaba's children |
The truth, according to
Eze is that women still surpass men in terms of contribution to agriculture; be
it planting, harvesting and even taken some of the produce to the village
markets around in order to provide alternative food or money for such exchanges
for the family usage.
Further surprising
aspect, Eze noted was that despite all the efforts, women like in the eastern
part of Nigeria inhabited by the Igbos, still submit every income to the man of
the house and go back begging anytime she needs to buy something for the family
or as the children’s need arises, except for a few enlightened women, who
understand that the man is not always available when emergency need come up.
This
tradition, not only kept the women in check holistically, but also reduces
their economic powers, thus, they are very much dependant on their male
counterpart for almost everything.
In
the western part of Nigeria, where Eze works, the story changed a little, with
more women going into trading on agricultural products, whereas in the northern
part of Nigeria, women are still much kept in the Burqaa; an
outfit that Muslim
women wear, yet they, women are not most
often privileged to own the farm lands.
Sabo Elizabeth of Department of Agricultural Economics and
Extension, Adamawa State University, confirmed that the impact of the women in
agriculture particularly in Borno State
in northern Nigeria indicated that about 52 per cent were married women farmers,
buttressed the role of women in agriculture on the continent.
Prevailing issues on
women in agriculture:
Its
no longer news that women play a significant role in agriculture, the world
over, so Africa is not exonerated, though there are some prevailing issues like land tenure
systems, national and local institutions enforcing land regulations, land
administration institutions and women quotas as well as funding provisions to
guarantee women’s land transactions and other related factors influencing
gender discrimination on land rights among others.
It
was not surprising that the Sustainable Development department of Food and
Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in its recent submission confirmed
that women play a major role in household animal-production enterprises by
having primary responsibility for the husbandry of small animals and ruminants,
and also take care of large animal systems - herding, providing water and feed,
cleaning stalls and milking.
Women made up 70% agric workforce:
FAO
also concluded by identifying the fact that in Africa, women made of up 70 per
cent of the agriculture workforce, 60-80 per cent of the labour to produce food
for household consumption and sale, 100 per cent of the processing for basic
food stuffs, 90 per cent of household water and fuelwood, 80 per cent of food
storage and transport from farm to village, 90 per cent of the hoeing and
weeding work, while made up of 60 per cent of the harvesting and marketing
activities.
Noteworthy
is that these figures showed less difference from FAO report since 1985, which
means that much may not have been achieved in terms of changing the mindset of
policy makers and women and gender advocates in turning the campaigns around.
Conclusion:
If Africa must feed the continent and be
self-reliance in food security through agricultural science and innovation,
then, African continent has a lot to do to empower women.
It is encouraging that recently the Federal
Government through its WIN project gave a focused attention to women
entrepreneurs, with free loans, moreso, for those investing in agriculture.
Government at all levels of governance, mostly the local
government administration needed to do more in assisting women farmers in form
of appropriate policies and strategies to make certain they access right
information by extension services, the land resources, credit and any other subsidized
inputs to mention but a few.
The sooner we take and examine these hiccups against women
agriculture input seriously, the better policies and harvest await the
continent. Just as we have to change the perception of our today rural men on
marrying many wives for the sake of getting agriculture assistants.
Remmy Nweke/NaijaAgroNet
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