As part of its ongoing strategic investment drive to support Nigeria’s food security quest, and its short to medium term value chain developmental efforts aimed at boosting wheat production, Crown Flour Mill (CFM) Limited – a leading flour milling business, has provided farming irrigation equipment to some female wheat farmers in Kano state.
The irrigation equipment is meant to assist the female smallholder wheat farmers and ultimately enhance their productivity levels.
The equipment, consisting mainly of a high-pressure water pumping machine, were formally presented to the female farmers at a ceremony held recently in Giyamusu, Ajingi LGA of Kano state.
Speaking about the intervention, Rauda Musa Umar, wheat development programme officer, CFM, said the organisation is committed to assisting the Government achieve its food security and economic diversification agenda.
“We will keep providing the necessary farming support and modern agronomic capacity-building training to local wheat farmers to boost wheat farming practices and yields in the country. Our focus, of course, is food security and improving livelihoods,” she said.
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The realization of the productivity potential of women smallholder farmers in the country has largely been constrained by poor access to land and farming tools, especially irrigation equipment.
Access to modern irrigation infrastructure on the farms to boost the yield of crops is grossly lacking and crops such as wheat crops yield higher returns when properly irrigated.
The presentations of the pumping machines to the women smallholder farmers marked a needed upturn in women farmers’ aspiration to scale as well as support and meaningfully contribute to the ongoing government’s agricultural development programmes.
The recipients of the farming irrigation equipment are Lauratu Kassim, a 40-year-old wheat farmer with three years wheat farming experience; Maryam Ahmad, who has been practicing crop cultivation for many years but went fully into wheat farming four years ago and Atika Shuaibu, another 40-year-old female farmer who started wheat farming two years ago.
Shuaibu owns a very big farm where she plants rice and other crops and a wheat farm, but has no pumping machine for irrigation. Hasiya Muhammad, who has had to rely on her husband’s farming equipment to sustain operations on her farmland, and 40-year-old Liti Audu are the other beneficiaries of the farming infrastructure support.
Umar Ganduje, executive governor of Kano state, represented by Faruk Sule Garo, senior special adviser – Youth Empowerment appreciated and applauded the effort of CFM in empowering women and investing in the agricultural sector which helps in ensuring the livelihood of millions of Nigerians and in boosting the economy of our country.
Speaking also, Salim Saleh president Wheat Farmers Association of Nigeria, said, “The various intervention programmes implemented by Crown Flour Mill Limited are laudable. The presentation of this farming equipment to our women will go a long way to boost the women farmers’ productivity and raise the economic contribution levels of the women.”
“Let me seize this opportunity to encourage other corporate organisations and well-meaning Nigerians, especially those operating in the agric value chain, to emulate Crown Flour Mill Limited in developing and boldly executing impactful agricultural development programmes that will reverberate across the local landscape,” he added.
Atika Shuaibu, who spoke on behalf of the other women smallholder farmers, expressed her appreciation for the delivery of the irrigation facility.
“I am so happy to receive the machine. With the irrigation machine, most of us will stop hiring pumping machines to water our crops. We will also have a bigger and better harvest. I thank Crown Flour Mill for this assistance,” she said.
