Smallholder rural farmers in Kwara state, especially, women farmers, have opportunities to reduce post-harvest loss and improve their economic growth when they embrace Information Communication Technology (ICT) in their farming activities.
Speaking with in Ilorin, Kwara state capital on Sunday, an agricultural entrepreneur and co-founder of Ayosifam Integrated Service Ltd, Funmilayo Esther Famuyiwa, said that women farmers and youth would be empowered with extension services, insurance, micro credit/ farm inputs, market place and more through ICT.
Mrs. Famuyiwa said that the ICT initiative was aimed to empower more women and youth in cassava farming towards promoting sustainable agriculture and food security.
She said that Ayosifam has upgraded its website to accommodate extension services, insurance for farmers, listing of farm produce and more, adding that users now have access to micro credit/farm inputs once the farmer is within catchment areas in Kwara state and certified by extension agents.
“This initiative is to create robust opportunities for smallholder rural farmers especially women farmers to reduce post harvest-loss.
“Our aim is to empower more women and youth with cassava farming while promoting sustainable agriculture and food security”.
Mrs. Famuyiwa, who described women farmers as key to food sustainability and food security, said that they are as well sustaining the nation’s economy with their agricultural productivity.
“In our years of operation, we discovered some gaps in the farmers operations. Because we are not after profit making alone but to impact in our community, that’s why we come up with the initiative, to empower smallholder rural farmers especially women to be able to increase their yields and reduce post harvest loss, especially, when market access and space is already created for their produce.
“As a registered food processing and packaging company, we take cassava produce from them and produce it into cassva based food products like Ayosifam Garri, Ayosifam Lebu and Ayosifam Cassava Chips. Because we found out that the women face challenge taking their harvest to market, so with creation of online market access for their agricultural produce, we bridge that gap for them as we’re into value addition production of cassava roots to high quality products
.
