The Small-Scale Women Farmers Organisation in Nigeria (SWOFON), alongside GIZ Global Programme AgSys Nigeria, ActionAid Nigeria, ActionAid International, and African Women in Agricultural Research and Development (AWARD), has raised concerns over Nigeria’s estimated annual post-harvest losses of N3.5 trillion.
This issue was highlighted in a joint communiqué issued by Fatima Bello Gummi, president of SWOFON, and Chinasa Asonye, national secretary, during a three-day training session on policy influencing and innovation for smallholder women farmers in Abuja.
The communiqué lamented that, if evenly distributed, these losses amount to approximately N94.5 billion annually for each of Nigeria’s 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
The stakeholders stressed the urgent need for evidence-based approaches to mitigate these losses and improve agricultural outcomes.
They reiterated recommendations from the 44th National Council on Agriculture and Rural Development (NCARD), urging all three tiers of government to allocate 10 per cent of their annual budgets to the agriculture sector. This recommendation aligns with the Maputo and Malabo Declarations, which call for at least a 6 per cent growth rate in agriculture under the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP).
They said, “There should be political will to allocate at least 10 per cent of annual budgets to the agriculture sector with appropriate budget lines.”
They further emphasized the importance of gender-sensitive budgeting from 2025 onwards, calling on governments to provide specific line items for implementing the National Gender Policy in Agriculture to address challenges faced by women farmers.
The communiqué called for Nigeria to strengthen its agricultural investments to meet its Malabo Declaration commitments and make meaningful progress in future biennial reporting to the African Union.
