DDiAdmiNToday is International Day for Eradication of Poverty. This year’s theme is: Building forward together: Ending Persistent Poverty, Respecting all People and our Planet. According to UNESCO’s Director-General, the fight against poverty should essentially take a multi-pronged approach that addresses not only poverty but also its causes and consequences, in all its complexity. According to UNESCO’s DG, poverty is not only a lack of financial resources, it also signals a lack of opportunities. As we commemorate this day, we feature a USADF grantee – Women Farmers Advancement Network (WOFAN) a group of smallholder women farmer groups in Kano State, Northern Nigeria. Led by Hajiya Salamatu Garba, the is group is gradually contributing to the eradication of poverty within their communities.
In 2018, USADF awarded WOFAN a grant of US$250K to establish rice milling and value addition centers with rice processing equipment and machinery. The grant also included funds to conduct Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) training for members; purchase of farm machinery and equipment; obtain certification from NAFDAC for its milled table rice, and develop linkages to new markets. The grant also aimed to build the capacity of WOFAN to access follow-on financing.
Four years after, the group has increased its farm area cultivated to rice from 60 hectares to 220 hectares, producing over 660 MT of rice paddy and over 200 MT of high-quality milled table rice – resulting in annual revenue of over N60m. The group has also diversified its activities via rice value addition that has resulted in scalable production of rice and groundnut flour for pastries, pasta, and snacks, increasing income for rural women, enhancing their capacity to cultivate more food, improving their standard of living and lifting over 2400 members out of poverty.
In this video, WOFAN’s Founder/Executive Director – Hajiya Salamatu Garba shares how the USADF support has impacted the lives of over 2400 rural women; becoming the launchpad that the group is building on today to reach more lives and contribute to the eradication of poverty.