Showing posts with label Nigerian women. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nigerian women. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 4, 2021

Women To Take Driving Seat in Nigeria’s Male-Dominated Farming Industry

 Women To Take Driving Seat in Nigeria’s Male-Dominated Farming Industry

Farming collective Alluvial Agriculture is training 50 women in tractor mechanics

The initiative will create female-owned tractor businesses serving women farmers

Programme is part of a joint initiative with Mastercard Foundation, with training from Tata International Nigeria.

Lagos, Nigeria, 4th August 2021 – For the past 13 years, Linda Sheknami Auta has grown rice, maize, yam and soybeans by hand. It is a long and arduous process that has prevented her from expanding her business as quickly as she would like. 

Ploughing her 20 hectares farm in Niger State in Nigeria’s Middle Belt takes the equivalent of five months of hard toiling. With the right specialist equipment and training, this could be cut to just 10 days. But finding the financing, tools and farm workers is tough – especially as a woman.

“Women in my industry are often looked down upon, considered too weak to be doing what is traditionally considered a ‘man’s job,’ so it has been hard to hire labour,” says Linda, 34. “Unfortunately, some men just do not want to work for a female boss.”

A new initiative by farming collective Alluvial Agriculture seeks to level the field for female farmers. The company, which provides education and market access for smallholder producers across Africa, has begun training and financially supporting 50 women across 15 Nigerian states to become tractor owner-operators. 

“For too long, women have been excluded from agricultural finance and mechanisation, despite the fact that they are the backbone of our industry,” said Dimieari Von Kemedi, co-founder and managing director of Alluvial Agriculture. “Our program is an important step in addressing this imbalance.”


Training is being provided by a joint venture between the Indian conglomerate, Tata International, and Alluvial. After the three-week course is completed, each of the women will form partnerships or cooperatives, and each cooperative will be provided with state-of-the-art John Deere tractors and will work on at least 5,000 hectares of female-led farms that are part of Alluvial’s community block farm projects. A percentage of fees earned by the women will be used to repay the loan for their tractor. Based on expected earnings from tractor leasing, the women should have paid for their first tractor within two or three years. Each of the new female-led businesses is expected to own between 20 and 50 tractors by 2028.

“The Mastercard Foundation is very excited about this partnership as it is an opportunity to drive inclusive growth for women in farming,” said Chidinma Lawanson, Nigeria Country Head at Mastercard Foundation. “Training young women to take up space in the male dominated sector is innovative and promotes gender equality. We look forward to many more women gaining such jobs in agriculture a major sector of the Nigerian economy.”

Female farmers across Africa struggle to cultivate their own businesses, cut off from formal financial support and agricultural training – symptoms of continued gender inequality that permeates through African society, says Chijioke Okoli, Nigeria Director for agriculture and construction equipment at Tata Africa Services. 

“Expert training and education in tractor operations will significantly support women in agriculture for the long term,” Okoli said. “We are honoured to be working with Alluvial Agriculture and the Mastercard Foundation to advance women’s economic empowerment.”

Linda is one of the first women to be approved for the new scheme. Once she has received her training, she plans to pass on her knowledge to other women. 

“I never imagined that I would learn to drive a tractor, but I am not one to turn down a challenge – I have a passion for trying things that society believes aren’t for women,” says Linda. “Women in agriculture must be empowered. Only then can we achieve gender equity in farming, afford a better life for our families, and help grow the economy.” 

About Alluvial Agriculture

Alluvial is a highly scalable private sector response to decades of failure by various parties to tackle one of the world’s most pressing issues: food security. We deploy an innovative business model that provides comprehensive support to small farm enterprises and smallholder farmers. This support spans training, technology, land preparation, irrigation, input supplies, and market access within contiguous farms in community and virtual blocks. Our partnership with communities, research and financial institutions, agtech companies, and value chain actors produces several high-quality crops and an enabling environment for farmers to sustain and scale up their activities. More information at https://www.alluvialtrade.com/

About the Mastercard Foundation 

The Mastercard Foundation is a Canadian foundation and one of the largest in the world with more than $39 billion in assets. The Foundation was created in 2006 through the generosity of Mastercard when it became a public company. Since its inception, the Foundation has operated independently of the company. The Foundation’s policies, operations, and program decisions are determined by its Board. For more information on the Foundation, please visit: www.mastercardfdn.org

About the Mastercard Foundation COVID-19 Recovery and Resilience Program

The Mastercard Foundation COVID-19 Recovery and Resilience Program has two main goals. First, to deliver emergency support for health workers, first responders, and students. Second, to strengthen the diverse institutions that are the first line of defense against the social and economic aftermath of this disease. These include universities, financial services providers, businesses, technology start-ups, incubators, government agencies, youth organizations, and non-governmental organizations. More information at: https://mastercardfdn.org/covid19-recovery-resilience-program

For further information, photos, videos and interviews, please contact:

Alluvial Agriculture

Ebiuwairo Uwagboe

+234 810 175 7344

uwagboe@alluvialonline.com

New Markets Media & Intelligence

Gavin Serkin           

+44 20 3478 9710 

gserkin@newmarkets.media

Mastercard Foundation

Nonye Mpho Omotola

Country Lead, Program Communications, Nigeria

nomotola@mastercardfdn.org




Wednesday, August 10, 2011

The Greatest Ambition Of Nigerian Women Should Not End In The Bedroom

The greatest ambition of Nigerian women ends in the bedroom while the greatest ambition of Nigerian men ends in the boardroom.

Majority of Nigerian women are more desperate to marry than Nigerian men.

In fact, majority of Igbo parents send their daughters to school to increase their material value more for marriage than careers.

The higher standards of education you have, the higher bride price and greater matrimonial status.

You are exposed to more men who are the potential suitors. Whereas the first and foremost priority of majority of Nigerian men is to be successful in their careers to increase their purchasing power to afford a good accommodation, a good car/SUV and a good wife or trophy girlfriend.

Many Nigerian men are still single, because they are yet to achieve this priority and there are not many choices of good women or trophy girlfriends to marry in Nigeria. Because, Nigerian men have been relegating majority of Nigerian women to the background and have ended up with more liabilities of millions of Nigerian girls and women who live at the mercy of men.

Nigerian women have their dreams and God has given everyone a unique purpose in life to fulfill your destiny. Therefore, do not let any Nigerian man make you give up your dreams to make a positive impact in your community and our society.

Any man who loves you will help you to succeed from the bedroom to the top of the boardroom.

Stephanie Okereke is a Nigerian actress who is fulfilling her noble dreams to make Nigeria better and greater.


We need more female CEOs than baby factories in Nigeria.
God made you to be more of a helpmate than bed mate.
Use your brains to excel and not your loins.

Amy Dubois Barnett is a leading African American woman fulfilling her American Dream as the Editor-in-Chief of the popular EBONY magazine.


A senior Nigerian banker was dating a very beautiful Nollywood actress from Akwa Ibom and said that he would prefer her to give up her acting career and goal to be a software engineer and be his wife with a supermarket. I advised her to dump him and she did. Then the other man told me that he would persuade her to stop acting to prevent her from being tempted and lured away by randy Nollywood actors and other big guys.

You see the inferiority complex behind the egos of these Nigerian men?

Nigerian men would prefer their women to end up eating from their hands to the women being independent.

Nigerian men feel better when they can show off their status symbols of posh cars or SUVs, luxury apartments and seven-digit salary positions to Nigerian girls and ladies, but get goose pimples and jittery when the Nigerian women are equally upwardly mobile top executives you cannot bluff.

Igbo men in particular feel reluctant to date big girls with big pay checks.

With majority of Nigerian men lording over Nigerian women, Nigeria will never advance in social, economic or technological civilization.

Dump any dumb Nigerian man who cannot stand your dreams and who does not want you to LIVE YOUR BEST LIFE NOW!

Narrow minded Nigerian men have been responsible for the underdevelopment of Nigerian women.

When my father retired, my great mother, Gladys Eke started working for the Lagos State Government to make sure that the family fared well and my father supported her. She was there with me on the high table when I launched my first book when I was 25 and encouraged me until the day she died. That is why I have called her the Mother of my genius. She was the one who taught me the art of story telling that has taken me places since age 13 when I won the first prize in the popular Pop magazine national essay competition on what we like best about Nigeria.
So, my success is the fulfillment of the dreams of my mother of blessed memory.

Nigerian women must never give up their noble dreams to achieve their intellectual and professional goals no matter what any man offers them to do so.

Look at the positive couple Stephanie Okereke and Linus Idahosa!
They are the best tag team in Nollywood and making great impact in the nation building of a New Nigeria.

Stephanie Okereke and Linus Idahosa!


If your man cannot stand by you to chase and fulfill your dreams, then he is not worthy of being your man. But your servant!


~ By Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima, author of four books, Founder/Festival Director of the annual Eko International Film Festival (EKOIFF) in Lagos. His new books "Time after Time", "In the House of Dogs" and "Barack Obama and the American Dream" will be released before winter.
For more, see Michael Chima Ekenyerengozi | Changemakers
www.changemakers.com/users/michael-chima-ekenyerengozi













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Saturday, February 5, 2011

Nigerian women have better taste than Nigerian men in romance


Photo Credit: The Serene Bride


Nigerian women have better taste than Nigerian men in romance

If you take time to examine the relationships of Nigerian women and men, you will find out that the women are more intelligent and sophisticated in their choices than the men.

Nigerian husbands are the most likely to be caught sleeping with their housemaids to catching Nigerian wives sleeping with their houseboys or servants. Meaning Nigerian men can sleep with any girl or woman, but Nigerian women cannot sleep with just any boy or man.

A Nigerian male executive with all the "Big Boy" status and swagger can rush to pull down his pants to have sex with the impressionable "Agege Bread" seller or Orange hawker even if she is dirty. But the Nigerian "Big Girl" will not even be caught flirting with any boy or man beneath her status or the class of her peers.

I have seen Nigerian "Big Boys" chasing what we call “bush meat” or half educated girls and women they can intimidate for cheap sex.
They resort to these cheaper options when the "Big Girls" bluff or rebuff them. So, they look for the poor secondary school leaver or undergraduate they can easily get with their cheap gifts and treats.

If the Big "Nokia" or "Blackberry" babies are playing hard to get, they might as well go for the poor babes who have little or no choice.

Like in Lagos city in Nigeria, the poor pretty ones from the ghettos of Mushin, Ajegunle and Shomolu are cheaper and easier for the "Big Boys" than dating the rich pretty babies in the upscale middle class Surulere, Ikeja, Anthony and upper class Ikoyi, Victoria Island and Lekki.

You can pose for the poor ghetto babies they can impress and brag about travelling to America or the UK, but not to the rich babies who spend their holidays and go for shopping trips in America, the UK, Spain, Italy and other fashionable destinations.

Nigerian "Big Girls" are more informed on the latest trends in vogue and have acquired more highbrow sophistication than the Nigerian "Big Boys" who in most cases are upstarts anyway. You see "Big Boys" who cannot even speak good English. So, they would prefer "toasting" the less educated poor girls to bending backwards to impress the more cultured "Big Girls".



~ By Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima