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Nigeria battling low food production, increased poverty – FG

The federal government has said that low food production is bitting harder into Nigeria’s Economy, leading to increase in poverty.
It said this is not far fetched from incidence of climate change and the underperforming Agricultural sector in the country.

The Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development, Senator Aisha Alhassan stated this in Abuja recently at a National Discussion on Small Holder Women Farmers in Nigeria, organised by the Women Advocates Research and Documentation Center ( WARDC).
She said, women who steps in as a crucial resource in the agriculture and rural economy, unfortunately face constraints that negatively impact on their productivity.
Despite playing a key role in the transformative role, she said;” women are not often recognised as farmers and so face wide spread restrictions on decision making about the basic resources for production which includes land, access to productivity enhancing inputs such as credit, fertiliser, improved seeds and extension services.
Alhassan who spoke through the Ministry’s Permanent Secretary, Mrs Binta Bello referred to the Gender in Nigeria Report of 2012 which estimated that 54 million women of Nigeria’s population are based in rural areas and are making a living from tilling the land.
Speaking on the theme;”tackling poverty in Nigeria through effective engagement of female small holder farmers”, she said women’s ability to produce enough food is further hampered by the physically exhausting labour and drudgery associated with crude farming.
She stressed the need to focus on women farmer’s productivity, as an effective engine for agricultural development and for social change.

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