Women in agriculture and their role in nation building and economic development.

The role of women in nation building can not be overemphasized and their impact in the agricultural sector is phenomenal. Small holder farmers that produce over 60% of the food consumed in the world are women,toiling in the sun,from sun rise to sunset. These women majority of whom are not educated,not empowered and operate without favorable laws and policies still push ahead to make magic happen on the farm,stalls and farmers market. I salute the #African women, with strength so unbelievable. The united nations noted that if women farmers have same access to tools and credit facilities there will be up to 150 million fewer hungry people,can you imagine the potential? The goal to feed the estimated 9 billion population by 2050 can be achieved easily by just doing this simple thing; "Empower women,train our girls" The former IFAD chief ,Kanayo Nwanze really understands the value of women in agriculture as he dedicated his African Food Prize award to “the millions of African women who silently toil to feed their families". Economic empowerment is very important for rural women and it is IFAD’s top priority to promote gender equality. Empowerment will be in the following ways 1) land allocation 2) favorable policies 3) training and seminars on innovation in agriculture that will yield more in less time. 4) provision of credit scheme and insurance cover. 5) cooperative groups,that will create a bond between members and other farmer cooperatives. 6)interactive sections to brainstorm and create a network. The main driver of this empowerment scheme will be cooperative groups,where the women are broken into various sectors and sub-sectors with each sector focusing on a particular segment of production. It is known that when women agree,stand together,then the magic begins....more