The North-East Development Commission (NEDC) has distributed agricultural inputs to 679 vulnerable women farmers and unemployed in Yobe. The Commission targeted widowed farmers in eight insurgency affected Local Government Areas (LGAs). While distributing the farm inputs Tuesday in Damaturu, the NEDC focal person, Dr. Ali Ibrahim Abbas disclosed: “Governor Mai Mala Buni has directed us to partner with the State’s Ministry of Women Affairs in identifying women farmers and widows before distributing the agricultural inputs.”
According to him, the distributed farm inputs include fertilizers, improved seeds, pesticides and herbicides to prevent pre and post-harvest losses. He said that the distributed farm inputs will restore their lost means of livelihoods during the 12-year Boko Haram insurgency in the state. According to him, widows and orphans are the most affected in the over a decade terrorism in the LGAs. On the state of widows and orphans, he said: “The women are left with thousands of orphans which make them difficult to cope in the affected communities. “We believe with their full engagements in farming activities,” he said, noting that it will enable the widows to cultivate crops to restore their destroyed livelihoods. He said that 769 vulnerable women farmers have been profiled to benefit from the agricultural input support. While commending Buni and the Commission, the Women Affairs Commissioner, Hauwa Bah Abubakar said that women farmers in the North have embraced farming as a business and means of livelihood.
