By TINA TIMOTHY

The Foundation for Environmental Rights, Advocacy & Development (FENRAD) has engaged rural women in Umuobiakwa community in Obingwa LGA of Abia State in a bid to proffer solutions to problems faced by the local farmers in the community, during an event organized by 21st Century and Both Ends implemented by FENRAD.

FENRAD said in a statement signed by its Executive Director, Comrade Nelson Nnanna Nwafor, that the climate change intervention was aimed at helping to alleviate poverty, vulnerability, and gender impact, among others.

He emphasised that the programme was a community-led women farmers programme aimed at building the capacity of rural women to be reliably independent and create opportunities for support.

Part of the statement reads: “Areas of the interventions this proposed Climate Change project helps to address include; Level of poverty and vulnerability, coping/adaptation strategies available to the people (the poor and vulnerable), existing/indigenous climate change adaptation measures and solutions etc (the poor and vulnerable), gender impact of climate change in Abia State.

“The meeting is part of the 21st century organization engagement and Both Ends Women led organization to support rural women to come up with climate related bankable projects to support their livelihood and make them self reliant. The Engagement came as a result of climate Change issues and the need to build the capacities of rural women to access funds and technical support to come up with initiatives that will improve their livelihood. During the interaction and discussion session, the women farmers came with initiative on Smart Agriculture and converting waste to use. Some of the farmers are into local farming at a small-scale, ranging from vegetables, cassava, pepper, maize, poultry to fish farming.

“At the Introductory speech, the Executive Director, Foundation For Environmental Rights, Advocacy & Development (FENRAD), Comrade Nelson Nnanna Nwafor, explained the reason for the intervention and stressed that this is one of the community led women farmers programme aimed at building the capacity of rural women to be reliably independent and create opportunities for support on the farming activities through the introduction of bankable projects that will help them address the adverse effects of climate change in their farming activities through the introduction of a Smart Agriculture Programme. He commended Both Ends and Century 21st for the initiative and hoped that the intervention will improve farming Activities and increase food sufficiency.”

During the engagement, according to the statement, projects to be executed under the Smart Agriculture were identified by some of the women, and they “demanded for improved farming implements, provision of insecticides to deal with the issues of pests, financial support to procure agriculture equipment and provision of fertilizers to improve their productivity.”

The statement reads further: “In her submission, Mrs Ozioma Kate who is into farming focusing on vegetables and cassava and has a small community land where the farming activities are done on a small scale, stressed that the farming has been going on a small scale and needed resources to increase her productivity. She also expressed that the farming activities has experienced low harvest due to lack of fertilizer to improve the growth of the crops, lack of Economic empowerment like grants and loans to increase the activities, climate change and rainfall patterns have affected productivity. The most threatening issues facing the crops and the productivity is the pest that has been eating their crops and it has posed a serious threat to the growth of the crops and called for support to procure chemical and pesticide to kill the pests affecting the crops. She also called for Agricultural inputs and farming implements to support the activities and increase productivity.

“Another farmer, Mrs Benjamin Blessing, who is into pepper, maize and poultry farming, also raised issues of lack of fertilizer and support to access grants and loans to improve their productivity.

“She stressed the need for training of women farmers on new farming techniques to manage their crops in the face of challenging climate change issues and called for funds to sink boreholes to enable them to have clean water to be used for the poultry. She also demanded financial support to buy routine drugs for the chicks which are being nurtured from one stage to another, ranging from starter, growers and finishers. She complained of the high loss of chicks during the dry season due to excessive heat and called for support to provide a good environment for the chicks during the dry season.

“Another farmer, Mrs Roseline Ihedindu, who is into fish farming, also called for support to get land to build a fish pond for the fish and sink borehole in the community that will be used in the fishing activities.

“Mrs Ngozi who is into snail Farming and plantain on a large scale, called for farming implements, provision of insecticides and fertilizer to support their farming activities. She stressed the need for support from government and other agencies to provide community women with grants to enable them acquire more lands and increase manpower that will increase productivity and food sufficiency.

“Other Women who are into honey, piggery, palm oil, cassava and plantain production called for support to increase productivity and stressed the need for the provision of cassava grinding machine and palm oil processing machine that will support their farming.

“Due to the increasing cost of Kerosine in the community used for cooking, the women advocated for the provision of a saw dust cooking stove which can be used by the women in frying their cassava after grinding and cooking their palm fruit to reduce cost of production and improve food sufficiency. The women demanded support to get dryers for the cassava and filters for the palm oil.

“Generally, the group of the female farmers in the value chain demanded for improved farming implements, provision of insecticides to deal with the issues of pest, financial support to procure agriculture equipment and provision of fertilizers to improve their productivity.

“Projects captured from the intervention under the smart agriculture include: production of palm oil in a large scale quantity and use of the palm nut for the processing of other local needs, large scale farming of cassava and piggery, production of plantain and pepper in large scale and the grinding of plantain flour, increase productivity in poultry farming and snail rearing, production of Honey in large quantity for commercial purpose, production of saw dust cooking stove, local manufacturing of insecticides to handle the pest and other chemicals to improve the land productivity, training and re-training of local farmers on new farming techniques and other innovation to handle issues of climate challenges in their farming activities.”

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