By Akinwale ABOLUWADE

FEMALE farmers in Oyo State, including their male counterparts, say the biting effect of inflation, herders’ activities, coupled with the rising cost of farm inputs, such as herbicides and fertilisers, is taking a toll on them. Amid these hardships, they allege government neglect.

For Alimotu Sadia Olalere, a female farmer living in Agbaru quarters in Iseyin, Oyo State, and many of her counterparts, farming in the state is a difficult venture with low profit. The woman, who is in her mid-70s, lamented that it is increasingly hard for her to maintain her farm which spans about eight acres.

This, she says, is due to the biting inflation that affects the cost of herbicides, fertiliser, seedlings, and other inputs.

With four grandchildren under her care, mama Olalere said she could hardly make ends meet due to her inability to maintain her farm with the required inputs.

Across the local government council areas visited in the state, women farmers in different interviews complained about high cost of inputs such as seedlings, fertiliser and chemicals.

They also lament scarcity of labourers, destruction of plants by climate, pests and diseases; insecurity occasioned by killer herdsmen as well as poor government intervention.

Inflation, high cost of inputs

Speaking about her plight, which she says has been worsened by high cost of inputs,  Olalere said, “At my age, I should be resting and doing little, petty chores on the farm. But I am constrained to weed and plant because of the high cost of inputs such as seedlings, fertiliser and chemicals.

Olalere, who farms a maize, vegetable and cassava in Iseyin, said that because she does not have energy to weed the entire farm all by herself, she resulted to saving money to buy chemicals.

However, she lamented that the chemicals have become very costly, explaining that she is compelled to buy the chemicals, “otherwise it would amount to wasted efforts and low yield.”

The inflation, she said, has a telling effect on her and the children in her care, because “It is difficult for me to cope with the upkeep of my grandchildren who are living with me.”

Similarly, Zainab Shittu, a farmer in Irin community, Surulere local government area, and Farounbi M.O, a vegetable farmer at Ojongbodu community, near Oyo town, said the spiralling cost of chemicals and fertiliser is a source for concern.

They expressed the fear that with the high cost of inputs, their crops may perish and that might result in huge loss for them.

Lamenting on her inability to buy sufficient quantity of fertiliser and chemicals, Shittu said, “I invested over N200,000 on my farm so far this season but I still need a lot more money. Things are very expensive nowadays.”

Farounbi on her part said that it was cheaper last year to cultivate crops than in the current year.

“For instance, a measure of vegetable seedlings which was sold for N800 last year is now going for N1,600. A bottle of chemical was sold between N2,500 and N2,700 last year, but now sells for between N5,500 and N6,000,” she said.

Another farmer, Yusuf Ramat Oyebisi said the cost of fertilisers has made her to look for alternative, “Sometimes, I use manure instead because I can’t afford to buy fertiliser.”

Another farmer, Alimotu Sulaimon, said, “We plough with tractor and that has become expensive too. From N15,000 in the previous years, we now plough one acre of farmland for N30,000.”

Scarcity of labour

Onaolapo Lateefat, a maize and vegetable farmer in Iranhin community, said that in her 16 years of farming, her experience last year, as well as in the current year had been challenging due to scarcity of manpower.

“It is difficult nowadays to get labourers to work on the farm and even when you get them, their charges are extremely expensive,” she said.

Recalling her experience, Alimotu Sulaimon a farmer in Elera community, Isalu, Iseyin LGA said, “We used to hire labourers who came from Ghana, Togo and Benin Republic. In the past, it was cheap to use them to tend the farms, but things have since changed. We hardly see them around now. They complain that the value of the Nigerian naira has fallen.

“We used to buy motorcycles (one each) for the labourers to work on our farms for one year, but we cannot afford the cost any longer because a motorbike is now being sold for over N1 million, depending on the brand.”

“Our members who are rice farmers used to engage the Togolese and the those from Togo on their farms, but the labourers are now rare to get. When you see them, they give huge charges. A few days ago, some of them charged us N40,000 to plant maize on four 4 acres of land.”

A cassava farmer from Oyo West LGA, Yusuf Ramat Oyebisi, said she decided to cultivate a few acres this year due to her inability to engage labourers as their charges are high.

She said, “I resulted to weeding my farm by myself because it is difficult to get labourers. We depend solely on the little that we can do. In my own community, we used to engage labourers but not anymore because it is more expensive now.”

A vegetable farmer in Jaguna quarters, Isalu community, Musiratu Midasiru, said that sometimes she makes heaps and weeds her farm by herself.

“These days, it is very difficult to get labourers to work on our farm. We result to engaging students to help us on the farm during the weekends. Since inflation started, labourers from neighbouring countries are scarce to get and our young men have taken to transportation business.”

Impact of insecurity, herders activities on farming

Farounbi, the vegetable farmer at Ojongbodu community,  alleged that it is dangerous for them as women to farm after the raining season when the vegetation up north goes dry.

“During the dry season, we usually have problems with the herders because most of them come down south and their animals often destroy our plants. When the cattle pass by our farms while the herders are taking their animals to the riverbank to drink water, they would invade our farm and eat up our vegetables,” she said.

Citing a particular instance last year, she alleged that her one-acre vegetable farm was plundered by cattle. According to her, when she lodged a complaint with the head of the herder clan in the area, she was paid just N80,000 as damages on the farm that she could have generated about N350,000.

“This amounted to a huge loss on my investment,” she lamented.

Also, Sulaimon, the farmer in Elera community also cited herders activities as a challenge. She said, “…destruction of our farmlands by cattle owned by herders”  is one of the challenges.

Recalling the losses that she suffered because of cattle invasion of her farm in 2023, she said, “Last year, my potato farm was plundered by some cattle. It was very painful considering the huge loss that I suffered.”

Pests, diseases 

Aside cattle invasion, Farounbi earlier mentioned said  pests and diseases is a challenge they are battling. “The problem is compounded because the cost of chemicals is so high and we don’t have enough resources to procure as many as we want.”

On her part, Lateefat the maize and vegetable farmer in Iranhin community said at the start of the raining season this year, there were long breaks and because of that, their plants became stunted and were infested with pests and diseases.

“Getting chemicals to fight it was difficult due to high cost and proliferation of fake chemicals in the market. That led to huge loss for me, she said.”

Shittu, the farmer in Irin community, Surulere LGA, said that part of her maize farm, spanning close to 10 acres, was plagued by diseases. She said that with the current high cost of chemicals, she may lose the entire crops.

Challenges not peculiar to women – Male farmers

Babaloja of Apenpe Market in Iseyin, Aafa Salami Abduljeleel, and Abidemi Nurudeen, male farmers in Oyo town, explained that the challenges being faced are not peculiar to women farmers alone. They said the state government has not been giving adequate support to them as well.

According to them all farmers irrespective of gender were equally affected by inflation, pests’ attack on crops and lack of support from the authorities.

Musbau Onaolapo, a farmer in Iranhin community who is popular for cultivating large expanse of land for yam, groundnuts, palm trees, maize, cassava and vegetables, said the effects of inflation, diseases, poor government support and unavailability of loans to farmers, as well as diseases and climate change, are not limited to women.

Comparing the situation in the past with the present, he said, “It was easy to get labourers to work on our farms before, but now they are scarce and the charges are humongous.

“Majority of our people have fled their farms and are now engaging in transportation business. Only the foreigners are readily available to work but their charges are cutthroat.

“As things are, we depend largely on chemicals for farming. We hear that government is assisting farmers in the state, but nothing gets to us. At no time was I given inputs, or loan or grant.

“Women under SWOFON in this LGA made efforts but to no avail. It even led to distrust among them and at some point, they fell out. They became angry that their leaders were unable to facilitate any support for them from the state government.”

Women make up a large percentage of farmers in communities visited by they reporter. They noted they rarely get interventions. Most of the farmers said that they don’t get assistance while the few ones who said they got help from government, said that it rarely comes and when it comes, it only trickles down to them.

Budgetary allocation

Checks show that out of the N438,447,878,548.39 budget for Oyo State in 2024, agricultural sector got N15,898,708,031.80 representing 3.68 per cent. N4,406,208,031.80 covers recurrent expenditure while N11,492,500,000.00 covers the capital projects.

The capital projects in the state budget for the year under review, having potentials to impact the farming activities of small holder women farmers are: purchase of pest control equipment such as Knapsac for which N1,630,000 was allocated; purchase of agricultural inputs such as 180MT Granules for which N82,350,000 was budgeted; agro-women budget line and empowerment of women, youth and PWDs in partnership with DAWN.

Commission/LAPDO/US AID (N30,000,000.00 budgeted); and Crop Type Multiplication which is to provide seeds, stems and inputs for SWOFON members (with allocated budget of N25,000,000.00, among others.

However, hitches were noticeable in areas of disbursement of the budgeted funds as well as distribution of inputs to farmers (with special reference to small holder women farmers).

Poor government support

Some of the farmers were embittered that poor implementation of intervention to farmers is a major challenge that they are facing.

It was, however, noticed that the situation started improving lately after an interview was held with some government officials in the state.

One of the farmers, Farounbi said, “We only hear about the support being given to farmers in the news, but we have not benefitted from it. There was a time we were told about a loan scheme from the state government and we made attempts to get it, but we were not given. We filled some forms but there was no result.

“We sent a delegation to Oyo State Agricultural Development Programme (OYSADEP), but an official at the agency promised to update us, but we are still waiting; we are hoping that they would reach us one day.

“I have been into farming since I was a young girl. But up till now, it was only once we were given two bags of animal feeds from OYSADEP. I never got fertiliser and chemicals or loan.

“I am appealing to the Oyo State government to assist us, especially we female farmers. We have a river close to us, government can help us by building irrigation channels. We can’t afford to do it on our own because of the huge cost. In fact, we can hardly afford the cost of cultivating our farmlands due to inflation.”

Lateefat said, “I never got a loan, fertiliser or chemical from government in my entire years of practice as a farmer. There is nobody within my circle of friends who ever confirmed that she got a loan from the state government.”

Corroborating this, a female farmer, Sulaimon said, “We hardly get support from the government. The only time that I recall we were reached in this community was when they gave us some maize seedlings and that was all. We heard that government distributed some chemicals, but we were not carried along in this zone.”

Sulaimon, who is an okra and cassava farmer, suggested that government should reach out to women who are genuine farmers instead of allowing their handlers to divert the aids.

She said, “Whenever government wants to give us support, they should channel it through OYSADEP. This is because we are already zoned under OYSADEP and it would be easy to reach out to all of us, otherwise we would not be able to track how the inputs are channeled.”

Shittu said, “I have never got help from the state government before. Whenever we come together to make an appeal to government for help, we wouldn’t get any response. That makes life difficult for us. We are appealing to government to give us support in a bid to increase productivity.”

Yusuf Ramat Oyebisi, said, “The only time I got an input was three years ago when I was given a bag of fertiliser. Nowadays, we buy chemicals in small quantities like N200 and we buy kongo (a bowl of fertiliser). We hear people talk about government aid; we hardly get any. We are pleading that the government should come to our aid in order to avert hunger in the land.”

A fish and goat farmer in Oyo town,Tawakalitu Ishola, said, “I heard recently that the federal government is about to approve N800billion loan but we female farmers in my community don’t ever get anything.”

Fake chemicals

Lately, the farmers said they have been contending with the problem of fake chemicals that is gradually saturating the market. This amounts to a waste of money as well as efforts. “These days, there are some fake chemicals in the market. When used, it won’t give required result. This is another challenge,” Farounbi said.

Shittu said “the  chemicals are so expensive, even though some are not original. We are appealing to the monitoring agencies to be alive to their responsibilities.”

Olalere also confirmed  that she sometimes ends up buying fake chemicals that fail to give her required result. “Sometimes, I discover that some of the chemicals being bought are fake despite the fact that they are so expensive. They don’t kill the weeds as expected.”

Stakeholders reacts

Jide Bamgbose who works with Justice, Development and Peace Commission in Oyo State, attributed the logjams being experienced chiefly to poor attention given to agriculture by the government.

He said, “You will realise that in the last three to four years, Oyo State has not been serious about agriculture apart from what they do with the OYSADA.”

“They have not been releasing capital funds in the last four or five years. If you don’t have funding, there is nothing (inputs) to distribute. That has been the bane of agriculture in the state. The ministry of agriculture in the state has not been properly funded. They have it in the budget. At the end of the day, what is the percentage that was released? It is abysmally poor. What I noticed is that government’s priority is different. It is what you have that you can distribute; what you don’t have, you cannot distribute.

“The advice I can give government is that they have to ensure that the budget allocated to ministries are actually released. Food security should be given priority attention by any government. “

“Unfortunately, in Oyo State, priority attention is given to youths in agriculture, but we have not seen the benefits. Priority is not given to agriculture in Oyo State, that is my observation.”

Meanwhile, the chairperson of Small-scale Women Farmers Organization in Nigeria (SWOFON) in Oyo State, Atinuke Akinbade, said the neglect being suffered by hmembers was partly as a result of the infiltration of their group by non-farmers trying to corner their entitlements.

Investigation shows that in each of the local government council areas in the state, there is only one agricultural extension officer, thus underpinning the inadequacy of government’s attention to farmers’ welfare.

Oyo State government responds

The Oyo State government  said that farmers in the state, including the women farmers, are being carried along in its agricultural agenda in line with the policy of the state government to ensure food abundance.

Abimbola Agbaje, desk officer, Women in Agriculture, Olasunkanmi Olaleye, denied the claim of non-inclusion of small holder women farmers as beneficiaries.

She said, “Plan is in pipeline to reach genuine and practicing farmers in the state.”

On his part, the commissioner for agriculture said, “The governor promised that his government would pay 50 per cent of the cost of ploughing farmlands by the farmers. So, I am glad to say that the governor approved the sum of N600 million for that and the programme will start [this] 2024.”

He added that “We have trained our extension officers on the Farmers Booking Application.”

This report was made possible with support from the International Centre for Investigative Reporting, ICIR.