FG trains, empowers women farmers in Oyo state

The Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) has conducted training and empowerment programs for selected women-owned farmers’ cooperative organizations in Oyo State.

The effort aimed to boost these farmers’ productivity and export potential in the state’s manufacturing and processing sectors.

At the concluding ceremony of the capacity building for the Women in Self-Employment Programme (WISE-P) in Ibadan, the Director General of SMEDAN, Olawale Fasanya, stated that the training intended to improve the production of high quality foods.

Fasanya, who was represented by SMEDAN Deputy Director, Special Duties, Tunde Oloyede, stated that the program encompassed entrepreneurship and enterprise training, with a particular emphasis on Hazard and Critical Control Point (HACCP) and empowerment equipment delivery.

According to him, the training will generate excellent items that fulfill the norms of the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) and other worldwide market needs.

“This capacity building will also put women’s cooperatives and their businesses on a solid financial footing for impact – in terms of pride, profit, and diversification.”

“The objectives of this programme, therefore, include to encourage more women cooperatives to embrace processing and manufacturing food related products as a viable business option and to encourage the diversification of the economy away from crude oil into non-oil exports,” the minister added.

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Ademola Ojo, Oyo State Commissioner for Trade, Industry, Investment, and Cooperatives, also challenged the beneficiaries to use the skills they learned during the training to manage and expand their vocational firms.
Ojo stated that this would allow them to focus on wealth building and job creation within cooperative societies, which would benefit the nation’s economy and citizens’ level of living.

“I wish to add that the Oyo State government, under the leadership of Governor Seyi Makinde, will continue to provide an enabling environment for private enterprises to thrive in the state,” he went on to say.

James Marsh, a food safety consultant from HAACP Academy Nigeria (HAN), challenged listeners in his presentation to be aware of food hygiene, food fraud, food terrorism, bioterrorism, and food sabotage in their operations.

He urged the participants to always practice food safety in order to compete favorably with producers in the international community.

“The majority of people’s ailments are caused by what they eat.” Nigeria’s life expectancy rate is not encouraging; we need to focus more on preventative medicine through food safety. “The government should also do more to raise food awareness,” he added.

Oluwatomisin Olatunji, a beneficiary of the Agricultural Exporting Farmers’ Multipurpose Cooperative Society, said the training exposed participants to a food safety system that would ensure Nigerian products are accepted both domestically and internationally.

Damilola Bukola, another beneficiary of the Olorunsogo Oba-Agbe Mechanised Farmers’ Multipurpose Cooperative Society, urged the government to ensure strict compliance with food industry regulations, adding that this would help to improve the standard of food exported from Nigeria to the international community.

The two cooperatives were given a dehydrator to dry food goods, a slicing machine, a power miller to grind dried products, and an automatic sealing machine to seal finished products.