Officials of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, and resources persons and participants at the just concluded 1 day workshop on the impact and mitigation strategies for women farmers on climate change for the north central zone in Abuja on Thursday 3rd March 2022
The federal government has trained over 6,000 rural women farmers on gender mainstreaming and strategies for mitigation and adaptation of climate change as part of ongoing diversification efforts to improve food security in Nigeria. The women also benefitted from the free gas cylinders given to each of the 6,000 trainees to support the fight against climate change.
Declaring the workshop open, the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Ernest Umanike, represented by Gertrud Orji, disclosed that the workshop is part of the implementation of the national gender policy on agriculture.
Supported by the Partnership for Advancing Women in Economic Development (PAWED), anchored by the development Research and Projects Centre, and other partners, the workshop is the last phase of zonal workshops organised at the six geopolitical zones for women farmers to train them on modalities and strategies to mitigate the impact of climate change in Nigeria.
In her opening remarks, the Assistant Director Gender of the Ministry, Ifeoma Anyanwu, disclosed that the workshop is a climax for the implementation of the National Gender Policy, which she said is an assertive document that recognizes the limitation of growth and development of the agricultural sector because of the exclusion of smallholder women farmers in strategic participation and in making of key decisions and access to agricultural assets.
She said that the document provides a clear direction for the implementation of guidelines and actions that will ensure fair and equal participation of smallholder women farmers in the entire agricultural process and food systems.
She then urged the participants to use the skills they will learn from the training to increase food production and support the economic development of their families.
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Earlier in his speech, a representative of the Minister of Women Affairs, Pauline Tallen, Idris Muhammed, who is the director of economic development in the ministry, commended the federal government for the various interventions aimed at securing food production and reducing overreliance on foreign food imports.
He said the present administration’s efforts at diversifying the economy is yielding the desired results as Nigeria is now self-sufficient in rice and other produce and will soon begin exportation.
He then urged the participants to use the learnings from the workshop to promote food security.
A highlight of the workshop was a panel session where experts on gender, economic development and advocacy led by Hauwa Yusuf, the director, Centre for Gender Studies, Kaduna State University and lead consultant to PAWED, discussed the significance of fulfilment of commitments to women in Nigeria.
They mentioned the recent rejection of all the bills that were introduced in the constitutional review to empower women as a setback for Nigeria
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