Women in farming business list challenges

Nigeria is currently experiencing a serious food situation this farming period as the sector is grappling with a predicted shorter rainy season and many small holder farmers in the country are heavily dependent on the rain as most cannot afford irrigation service to water their crops. Daily Trust’s Women in Business spoke with some Kuje women who depend on agriculture for their livelihood to see how they are coping with this development.

One of the female farmers works on the farm in Kuje, Abuja.

Every year Kande Isa borrows her business capital from the market women ‘Adashi meeting’ to enable her farm tomatoes and vegetables on a medium scale farm during rainy season and repays back the loan during her first sale after harvest. But this year Kande is confused as to how she will get the money to pay back.

Kande who sells tomatoes and pepper in Kuje hurriedly borrowed N90,000 in April and was to pay back N100,000 the first week of August after her first harvest. The money was to enable her get a plot of land to plant some crops and vegetables which she did until the rains stopped for about two months.

“Since I started planting in Kuje here about five years now I have never experienced the delay in rain fall before. And apart from that, the free plots we use for planting have all been used to build houses. Land has become so scarce that we have to rent and even at that your choice might not be available. I wanted a place that would be a trekking distance from my house close enough to the market”, Kande laments.

The female farmer told our reporters that she paid N35,000 to enable her plant on one and half plots of land but later realized that a portion of where she was to rent has been rented out to another farmer.

“I tried to fight it out but, the other farmer is a man and you know how ruthless our men can be”, the Gede farmer told Women in Business.

When she realized she would not be getting the additional half plot she settled for the one plot and decided to plant tomatoes, pepper, vegetable comprising of spinach, Ugu, shoko and okro. After purchasing the seedlings and had planted them the rains stopped falling and the plants withered.

Kande like other farmers in this area complained that due to the late onset of rainfall, they now have to buy crops which they had earlier planted, to enable them continue with their business.

“We usually gain so much profit from planting and harvest seasons even with the challenges of storage facilities and bad roads we still make profits. But this time around I am still licking my wounds. How am I going to pay my debt?”

Another trader Mama Matthew said she had not got the capital to buy seedling to plant maize when the rain stopped falling and was advised to wait till the rain starts again.

“They always say every disappointment is a blessing, and I am glad that this disappointment has stopped me from taking loans. How would I have paid back?”, she asked.

Sarah Jonathan who planted groundnut said while they all did not expect the rain will seize at the early part of the planting season, most small holder farmers like herself are counting their losses and are bracing themselves for the remaining part of the season.

The farmer, who said she lost about N50,000 because the crops she planted failed to grow, added if there was an alternative source of irrigation she would not have lost that much.

But the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NIMET) has advised farmers to use enhanced early maturing seeds for the shorter crop season.

But the Seasonal Rainfall Prediction (SRP) of NiMET means nothing to the rural farmers as they are ignorant of the predictions and its relevance to their life-long profession.

Nothing seems to be the solution for the farmers, after spending money procuring tractors, for those with large portions of land, and spending on seedlings and cultivating, like good rains.

Experts said the farmers’ losses would have been minimal if they had kept abreast of innovations such as the rainfall predictions. But to the farmers: it is rain, rain and rain.