Small-Scale Women Farmers Organization in Nigeria (SWOFON) has called on the FCT Administration to explore extant credit options facilities and secure credit for the State farmers particularly by exploring and evaluating the myriad of credit scheme options established by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
The Assistant Secretary, FCT SWOFON, Chigioke Peace at the State Level Stakeholders Consultative Meeting on FCT 2022 Agriculture Budget in Abuja Federal Capital Territory Administration – Agriculture & Rural Development Secretariat (FCT-ARDS) FCT – ARDS should create a specific budget line on strengthening access to Credit (handholding) for smallholder women and youth farmers cooperatives.
While reading the comminuque, Peace said there is need to promote gender mainstreaming in the budgetary allocations and facilitate timely submission, consideration, and passage of the FCT annual statutory budgets and release of funds.
She further said FCT and policy makers should strictly adhere to the January – December budget cycle timeline.
In her words “It is imperative for FCTA to determine the number of farmers in FCT and disaggregate such statistics along gender and scale of operation lines as part of necessary steps towards proper planning, decision making and empirical evaluation of performance.
