By Emmanuel Nduka
The French Government has invested €200,000 aimed at enhancing the rural women’s skills in producing higher value-added agricultural products and in leading their agri-food enterprise in Nigeria.
This was revealed in a statement by the French Embassy in Nigeria.
The SEFAN/SWEAN project is funded by the French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs with €200,000 through the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA).
“The objective to enhance the rural women’s skills in producing higher value-added agricultural products and in leading their agri-food enterprise, is aimed at creating value, revenue, jobs and growth which will attract more youth to the agricultural sector, giving them not only modern technical skills, but also pride and enthusiasm in being a farmer, as there is no more beautiful career than contributing to properly feeding people,” the statement said.
“Since the project’s launching on the 1st September 2020, a lot has been achieved, which include the training of 300 women from Oyo and Kaduna states in agribusiness,” it added.
The French Embassy noted further that the women have already built a greater autonomy, self-empowerment and started to strengthen their networks; with the training manual, available in the three major Nigerian languages.
“There is plan for 50 more selected women to be trained in becoming trainers themselves and are expected to pass on their knowledge to more than 1000 beneficiaries. The next step from this meeting is a collaboration with the French network of Technical Education in Agriculture to modernize the curricula of the agricultural technical institutions in Oyo and Kaduna, then spread the modules to other states and at the country level, by promoting their integration into the Agriculture Technical Vocational Education and Training (ATVET) schools and centers,” it added,
