Economic Empowerment for Rural Women in Nigeria: Poverty Alleviation through Agriculture

Abstract

Generally, rural women are majorly involved in agricultural activities such as planting, weeding, harvesting, processing and marketing. They also keep some domestic animals and birds. Empowering rural women will go a long way to improving the economic life of the women and also the well-being of individuals, families and the rural communities. Social, cultural traditions and agricultural constraints can limit rural women’s economic status. Rural women’s limited access to productive resources, low educational level and illiteracy are contributors to rural women’s poverty. Illiteracy affects their chances to benefit from newer, non-traditional methods such as: information and communication technologies. The promotion of agricultural development should be through the provision of useful and relevant information to the farming communities by the extension services. The unpaid work that women perform at home and farm are not recognized for official record. There are many constraints making rural women farmers to be lagging behind economically, apart from lack of agricultural information. The main constraints are the lack of personal land and credit. There is evidence that empowering women in multiple ways will contribute to their own food security and nutrition and that of their families. Women are limited in terms of their potential in contributing to agricultural development. Reducing the gender disparities or discrimination will generate significant gains for the agricultural sector. There is the need for national laws and policies that promote women’s rights to own land, property and have equal access to credit for their businesses.