Loan Facilities: Body Wants Women Farmers To Float Cooperatives

Women farmers in Enugu
State have been urged to embrace the concept of forming cooperatives as a measure to build themselves up into a more formidable group in order to access loan facilities for their farm businesses.
This recommendation was outlined during the Town Hall meeting which took place at the Cooperative College Hall Enugu  recently.
The state has been identified as having more women farmers than men.
In a telephone interview with our correspondent, the GEMS Intervention Manager, Richard Ogundele stated that these women who are mostly subsistence farmers have been limited from engaging in mechanised farming due to lack of funds.
Pledging the support of his organisation, Ogundele stated that lots of opportunities abound for women farmers in tomato cultivation, especially with the ongoing sourge in the northern part of the country by Tuta Absoluta-tomato disease.
Also, the convener of the meeting, Barr. Richard Mark Mbaram, who also spoke to our correspondent on phone emphasised, the need for the implementation of the Maputo Declaration by the Federal government which stipulates that 10 per cent of the total yearly budget must go into agriculture.
Mbaram, who is also the Editor-In Chief of Agro Nigeria explained that the declaration has since been existing on paper, insisted  that the declaration should be implemented by the President Muhamadu Buhari-led administration.
He urged media practitioners to ensure through their reportage that the government does not “throw away the baby with the bath water” through policy reversal while recommending that the Buhari-led government should leverage on the enviable legacy laid down by the immediate past Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development and President Elect, African Development Bank, Dr Akinwunmi Adesina.
In his remarks, the Deputy Director of Cooperatives, Enugu State Cooperative College, Mr Festus Ezenwa urged farmers present to key into the power of the cooperative society, insisting that by coming  togather they can easily achieve as a group what they cannot achieve as an individuals.