HerVest, a female-centred, social organisation established to provide financial inclusion for women has launched “Fund a Female Farmer” initiative to train female farmers on agronomy and financial literacy across key Nigerian states.
The initiative has already trained over 2,680 women farmers across Benue, Oyo, Niger, Kaduna and Kwara.
According to HerVest, such training will increase agricultural productivity and yield among smallholder female farmers through expert knowledge and applied best practices covering rice, maize, and soya beans production.
Currently, the women farmers who have benefited from the intensive, standardized training outreach backed by the USAID funding boost to HerVest are from Benue State (200); Oyo State (260); Niger State (250); Kaduna State (970) and Kwara State (1,000).
The CEO and Co-founder of HerVest, Solape Akinpelu, speaking on the initiative, commended its success in reaching out to female famers through USAID.
“We are pleased with the successes we have achieved in impacting more Nigerian women farmers through the boost from USAID especially as it helps put more of the smallholder women farmers through the best agronomy practices in the wake of current economic realities.
“The need to train and finance smallholder female farmers in Nigeria is very critical at this stage of economic recovery post-COVID-19 pandemic,” she said.
According to Akinpelu, the first phase of female famers have gotten more knowledge on agronomy and financial literacy.
“At the end of the first phase of the exercise, 85% of 2,680 female farmers have expressed increased knowledge on agronomy and financial literacy.
“This has further renewed our commitment to ensuring more of these women farmers have the right information at all times to help them make better business decisions,” she added.
