On the home front, the woman is seen as the home maker and builder. At the religious end, women are regarded as help mates to the men. In economic circles, the women are seen as better managers of resources – termed to be meager and inadequate – than men. With these and many more attributes in mind, the world sets aside March 8 every year as a day to celebrate women. According to the International Women’s Day website, the day is set aside to “celebrate the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating gender parity.
“International Women’s Day, IWD, has been observed since early 1900’s – a time of great expansion and turbulence in the industrialised world that saw booming population growth and the rise of radical ideologies. International Women’s Day is a collective day of global celebration and a call for gender parity. No one government, NGO, charity, corporation, academic institution, women’s network or media hub is solely responsible for International Women’s Day. “Many organisations declare an annual IWD theme that supports their specific agenda or cause, and some of these are adopted more widely with relevance than others,” the website noted. It is noteworthy that the involvement of women in agriculture in Africa has experienced a surge.
Food and Agriculture Organization statistics shows that women in Nigeria are fully involved in agricultural activities. With this year’s campaign theme: #PledgeforParity, women are rising to the demand for the conducive environment to help them harness the limitless potentials they possess in social, economic, cultural and political economy, business as well as in agriculture. With this campaign hitting the waves, there is a sincere attitude of the women to give in more to every facet of living as well as contribute their quota to the advancement of the world. To achieve this, the CEO of WOFEM Agro-Allied Limited, Mrs. Atinuke Sopade said that there was need to actually ensure the exposure of women to the requisite education, information, science and technology, and extension services, adding that this would definitely improve productivity, expand ownership and reach.
According to her, accessibility to credit schemes for women farmer groups must not be cumbersome as this could be discouraging, noting that women farmers in Enugu State were promised support by the Bank of Agriculture in February. She said the promise by the bank to give more support and credit scheme platforms to youths and women was a good one from the bank and must be fulfilled headlong. She said, “The nation is in dire need of diversifying as its mono economy is nose-diving. Agriculture is a sure way to go in the diversification process. All necessary support and favourable schemes must therefore be put in place to encourage women, men and the youth in attaining maximum output in production.”
