World Bank Boosts Agriculture With $1bn In Nigeria.

World Bank Boosts Agriculture With $1bn In Nigeria.

In a bit to boost food production and enable women more women access to farmland, the World Bank has said it would be supporting Nigeria with $1billion over the next four years.

Disclosing this on Thursday, in Abuja, at the Technical Dialogue on Gender and Agriculture in Nigeria, World Bank Nigeria Country Director, Mr. Francois Marie-Nelly said that the loan would be directed toward Irrigation.

The National Dialogue on Gender and Agriculture in Nigeria is a fallout of an earlier programme that was held in 2013.

The event is aimed at fashioning out better ways of helping Nigeria women more access to farmlands.

While noting that 70 percent of the country’s labour force are women, Marie-Nelly revealed that 60 percent of agriculture household in Nigeria are women.

The Nigeria Country Director asserted that in order to drive income growth iin the country.there was need to give more women access to farmland.

Speaking at the occasion, Nigeria’s Minister of Agriculture, Mr. Akinwumi Adesina disclosed that the Ministry would be distributing mobile phones to one million women farmers.

According to the minister, this would enable more women get access to fertilizers and seeds.

The minister who was represented by the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry, Mrs. Ibikun Odusote further said that that the Ministry is working with the Presidential Committee on Land to ensure that women have more access to land. “We will reduce the cost of registering lands and ensure that women get their titles to land.

We must also change inheritance laws to ensure that women are not maginalised in inheriting lands, so help them secure property rights.”

She also advocated for more investment in women saying that “if we invest in women farmers we invest in the nation and we invest in our chilren.

“Women will secure our food supply, they will secure our nation”.

She therefore urged Nigeria’s government to remove hinderance to women having more access to land.

FrontiersNews.