By Fatima Muraina

Nigerian women have been urged to venture into agriculture as alternative to their source of income for a better living.

A medical practitioner, who is also a farmer, Dr. Mrs. Funmilola Williams-Daudu made the call while presenting a lecture at this year’s agricultural show and food fair held in Akure the Ondo state capital.

She said women should build their capacity in agriculture in order to move to the next level.

“As women, look into areas you can tap into. Akeredolu has made the environment favourable to women by making CAC easy for assessment,”she stated.

She advised women in agriculture to group themselves into commodity association which will create better ways for them in accessing government’s assistance, particularly in terms of loan and many other benefits.

While charging them to always take their area of specialisation in agriculture as a business, Williams-Daudu advised people to be financially discipline so that they could grow.

“If you want to venture into agric as a business, you have to be accountable and avoid unnecessary spending and avoid tampering with the business money.

”You must also be paid from the business as salary for your upkeep and be prudent because record keeping and management of finance are very key in agriculture,”

While reeling out several challenges such as access to land and land tenure system, she mentioned the importance of forming cooperative groups which she stated would solve most of the challenges faced by women.

She raised the need to have a good mentor and be ready to mentor others as well as pointing to access to information as also very important among majority of others.

She charged agricultural experts to always ensure that agricultural information should be in the language the people understand while farmers should participate in farm management.