7^th April 2020

 Consistent with its commitment to develop and enhance Women Agri-preneurs, in April 2020 NAAD Women in collaboration with its main partner and sponsor the Bank of Agricultural held an Agri-Business Tech convention with the objective to provide an overview of how best to equip women with tech solutions in running profitable, sufficient and sustainable farming enterprises as well as solutions on the challenges faced by women farmers. The tech solutions focused on Beef horizontal value chain (veld management, grazing, breeding and producing quality meat) while ensuring efficient and active participation, thus opening up this commodity to women in agribusiness.

This solution orientated online seminar had 212 global participants ranging from women farmers, leaders, students and various CEO’s and HOD stakeholders.
The conference programme was directed by Dr Akinwumi Adesina a seasoned agricultural economist and a perfect match in assisting women agripreneurs to grow and flourish in the sector. Mrs Rose Bolanle Director General of NAAD started the convention by citing pro Women empowerment initiatives as prescribed by various global initiatives such as United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, Continental Initiatives under AU framework which is (CAADP) Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Program, Malabo declarations and Agenda 2063 aspirations.

She then followed with the thought-provoking statement on UN recent study showing that women account for 43 percent in the world, 50 percent in Africa, and more than 46.6% percent in the Nigerian labor force of the sector. If all women in the continent can have better access to technology like farm machinery, drones and irrigation, production can be improved from 2,5 to 6% and reduce hunger by plus minus 6%. In Nigeria alone, 30 million people goes to bed hungry, on empty stomach that is and with covid-19 additional three hundred and eighty seven thousand households have fallen below poverty line, hence the urgent need and awareness to improve access of women to land, financing, markets, technology in order to increase our productivity, food security and sustainable well-oiled gender inclusive agribusiness, so today’s session seeks to introduce our NAAD Women tech savvy remedy that will be part of our programs going forward.

Hon. Benard Olamide an Officer in the office of NAAD encouraged women to let technology enhance their inherent abilities and humanity in order to set themselves apart and have a competitive edge in these changing and challenging times in business.

Mr, Micheal Agbayekhai Senior Manager for Agribusiness at Bank of agriculture spoke about how the recent Covid-19 pandemic has propelled businesses to be agile, faced with an option adapt and adopt. His concern is that if women businesses cannot access resources, how do we expect them to be able to adapt and adopt those new technologies? He was delighted to share Bank of Agriculture strategy that’s aligned to commercializing and making sure that women owned businesses are viable and profitable and said “It’s the right time to partner Greatly with women from NAAD Women and see how far we can take this partnership”. He also went on to raise the importance of water reminding the participants that Northern part of Nigeria is water scarce part and posing thought provoking questions; How do agri-preneurs remain profitable while remaining viable at the same time without running out of our scarce resources? Which led to the first presentation by Halima Nuhu from NAAD Women and a PhD student in Agricultural Engineering at the University of Abuja.

Halima Nuhu spoke about technological water solutions with an emphasis on rainwater harvesting as one of the key contributions to technological water remedy. Her presentation touched on; water technology applications, examples of water technology as it relates to food production, rainwater harvesting, the stance of the national and local government with regards to rainwater harvesting, the national strategy on rainwater harvesting, the mean annual rainfall, as well as the rainwater harvesting potential, characteristics of rainwater harvesting, calculating rainwater harvesting, an example of how you can calculate rainwater harvesting potential for your farm, how to secure your borehole and how to grow orchards in the rain scarce areas.

The highlight of her presentation was to learn that NAAD Women in the process of developing an app which will be based on the specific needs in Africa, with an easy interface where people will be able to log in and input the different parameters related to their farm, for instance; a farmer is able to input how much livestock they have on their farm as well as which crops, they’re growing. Another exciting element of the App is that the farmer will in put values where an automatic calculation of the volume of rain water they could get from your site will pop up. One of the participants Lizzy Boniface who works around Africa shared her interest in working with NAAD Women on the app especially in the sub-Saharan West Africa.

Mustapha Baba Shehuri – Minister of State for Agriculture and Rural development was pleased that the App is timely and could help farmers. However, also cautioned on the affordability risks for the intendent beneficiaries who are women farmers versus the global access of the technology and its commercial implication for the women farmers. Mustapha Baba Shehuri offered that after the technology has been tested, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development will ensure a reach out to its network in the states, they operate in to showcase it and make sure that it scales for a greater impact. A number of participants engaged on the subscription fee, device compatibility.

Beef Value Chain:

The aspect of the training focused on Technology in Beef Value Chain presented by Mr Samuel who is a senior processing consultant in Butchery Association of Nigeria, a turnkey management solution of animal health, animal husbandry, animal production, the Livestock breeding cycle, production quality management system and value chain programme to ensure their fair trade and production under human acceptable condition- relationship to meet industry compliance.

The technology uses mobile technology and camera system with ultrasounds technology as an innovative animal tracking solutions and tracking platform. The convention program made an impression on Mariam Muhammad a Sokoto, NAAD Women Co-ordinator to anticipated that it will assist women farmers. She echoed that in her state, Sokoto there are women in wildlife, she was keen to know if the Farmer App is able to assist with wildlife commodity? The response from Mr, Samuel was a resounding yes adding that the collar is going to be a winner for wildlife.
Given the success of this convention focused on changing the dynamics for women in agribusiness using technology as a solution to maximize the value chain we hope that these technology remedy will attract the younger generation as future players to take the sector to greater heights.