Insights from our Partners: Women as protagonists of change

To mark 2021 International Women’s Day, WOFAN rewarded 300 smallholder women farmers from Dogon Bauchi and Samaru, Zaria, Kaduna state, Nigeria, with input and processing equipment, as motivation for taking their own development in their hands.
The Women Farmers’ Advancement Network-WOFAN is a coalition of over 4500 small-holder farmers’ groups with 30 members per group. WOFAN builds the capacity of its network through training, awareness creation as well as supports them with resources and linkages to markets to increase their agricultural productivity and scale through economic independence, political empowerment and sustainable livelihood improvement.

As part of its activities to commemorate the International Women’s Day 2021, which promotes a collective action and shared ownership for driving gender parity is what made WOFAN mark the International Women's Day (IWD) differently this year.
WOFAN decided to encourage the network groups to conduct a self-assessment including a self-imposed goal to measure their individual group progress in order to demonstrate how they have used all the capacity trainings and support received from WOFAN in the last 2 years, an explanation what has changed in their status at family and community level by showcasing their day to day activities as well as how they have truly made a positive difference to boost their productivity and rice processing capacity.

Dogon Bauchi and Samaru women groups (made up of 150 women each per cluster) all belonging to Zaria in Kaduna state, Nigeria, shared personal stories in presence of traditional and religious leaders, community, media and all stakeholders.
The group leaders Hajia Hadiza Dogon Bauchi and Titi Apeaku of Samaru shared their experiences how they started as smallholder farmers with little or no capacity in scaling up their agribusinesses. Both farmed at a loss continuously and were serving other millers with a token reward of N100 per day for working 8 hours labor until they met WOFAN. Dogon Bauchi and Samaru have 150 women processors who started as low income support hands for millers and are paid token fee of N300 per bag that is well parboiled.
Titi Apeaku stated that WOFAN extended all the trainings the field workers received from CARI trainers to their group, which gave them a clear understanding of group mobilization, business management, keeping records and maintaining financial discipline among the group. Furthermore, Titi explained that they now use their phones and calculators daily to keep accurate records of their group finances after processing or marketing. In addition, the Executive Director WOFAN mentioned that within the last 2 years the Dogon Bauchi and Samaru women were recipients of CARI -GIZ capacity building training programmes through extension workers and WOFAN field supervisors who received the training directly from CARI in the following areas:
I. Farmer Business School (FBS),
II. Sustainable rice production,
III. Improved processing and nutrition training,
IV. Rice Advice, ICT and use of 3D animation,
V. Contract farming and linkages to markets.

Moreover, Titi mentioned that her group is using radios to listen to news on farming activities and radio programmes like the WOFAN and CARI weekly sponsored radio programme on health titbit to improve family nutrition or political issues that are happening in their communities.
ICT solutions assists the women to follow the seasonal calendar and gives helpful inputs for a sustainable rice production. Due to the digital marketing training from WOFAN and the use of SMS, WhatsApp and the recording of their messages to advertise their products, the women have become popular and more respected in their community, said the Samaru team leader.
Through the CARI project, power tillers were acquired by WOFAN to support the use of simple technology that saves time and reduce hardship, especially for the women. WOFAN trained Dogon Bauchi and Samaru women in management and utilization of the power tillers.

” It is a lot more gender friendly, easy to access and gives the same end result as the tractor which is driven by the men”. – Rabi Chakawa, as she rolled off the power tiller displaying her ploughing skills of their Demo plot
Furthermore, training on Contract Farming empowered women’s decision making, as they are able to negotiate the costs of input and the selling price of their paddy and other farm products:
“In the past, we were told what to be given and what to give back and we realized we just farmed for the off-takers and aggregators. Now we negotiate before the cropping period, then shortly before harvest to be sure we are making profit. Likewise, we share our fertilizers and inputs and make sure every woman gets her inputs as agreed by the cooperative. Before WOFAN and CARI, we were not involved in such important decision-making discussions” (Bilkisu Isiyaku, member of the WOFAN group).
In sum, Dogon Bauchi and Samaru women have put together a sustainable pathway to replicate capacity building given to their clusters and to urge them to continue to be role models to others. They are taking their own development in their hands.