By Alfred Ajayi
December 2020 remains unforgettable for Mrs Ngozi Ubah, a small scale farmer in Awku-Ukwu, Idemili South Local Government Anambra State.
Like the previous years, the woman, who had been into livestock farming for long, had months earlier started rearing some broilers ahead of the year’s festive special sale, without any premonition that huge losses awaited her.
But, when the festive period came, she eventually sold the birds cheaper than the cost of rearing them as customers refused to buy at her own prices.
The devastating impact of such loss was not just for the small scale farmer. Her fifteen dependents, including nine biological children and husband, bore the brunt of the development as their survival was seriously threatened.
In an emotion-laden voice, she recounted the experience: “When we sold the last ones we reared last year December, despite all the sufferings. I could not even make the money I spent in rearing the chickens. It was after that ugly experience I decided to quit poultry farming”.
She made good her decision to quit as the poultry, located at the back of her residence, was empty and looked abandoned during the visit to her. She was, however, burning with passion for the business she had done profitably for many years.
“If God remember me and bless with money, I will start this poultry again. I enjoyed it when it was going on well”.
During the interaction with her, it was obvious that Mrs Ubah’s decision to quit poultry was not just informed by the loss, but the unfriendly business climate in the country, worsened by lack of assistance from the government.
Without any respite in sight from the poultry venture, her secret of survival is the cassava, yam, cocoyam and vegetable farms she has in various locations around her house.
Part of the farms has been cleared in readiness for this year’s raining season but sourcing for funds to achieve all her plans occupied her mind as she conducted the reporter round the farms.
She lamented: “I am not finding things easy again. We went for training in Awka and they asked us to open account. Up till now, nothing has happened. For this year, we are still waiting if government will give us input. Last year, year, I bought a bundle of cassava sticks N3,000 or N4,000. For this farm, I will buy not less than N20,000 worth of cassava stems. How will I make it?
“Now, I have spent not less than N12,000 clearing the land. I will pay up to N20,000 to make the ridges and then buy cassava stems and drugs to keep them healthy until harvest. If you calculate all these expenses, you see why food is costly”.
Mrs Ngozi Ubah is not alone in her predicament as funding was identified as the greatest challenge, dealing a big blow to the desire of the small scale women farmers in Anambra State towards making food available for the populace.
Mrs Georgina Akunyiba is the Co-ordinator of Small Scale Women Farmers Organization of Nigeria, SWOFON in the state. Her business is thriving against all odds as the two-room shop, where she sells feeds, drugs and other items, is an attraction to other livestock farmers within and around Nnewi, the manufacturing hub of the state.
Apart from selling feeds, Mrs Akunyiba is into poultry farming. She sold her birds a day before the visit, leaving only few broilers in the farm. Despite appearing to be doing better than most of her contemporaries, she argued she would have done even better, but for financial handicap.
“As small scale farmers, we started with little money expecting that government would help us to do better. But, that has not happened. We survive by our efforts. We do contribution during our meetings and give members to help them in their farming work”.
She continued: “A truck of feed is now over N3,000,000 as against N1,7 or N1,8 million before. So, the money that would buy two trucks before will now manage to get one. To rear fifty broilers to maturity, twenty bags of feed is needed. We bought that quantity at N32,000. But now, N100,000 cannot buy it”.
Akunyiba’s situation is better appreciated knowing that she lost her husband since 2014. For seven years, she has solely carried the responsibility of raising her five children with the proceeds of her agriculture business.
Today, her first child is a graduate of Anatomy while the second, who studies Animal Science at Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University, Igbariam, is in final year.
The third child has just gotten an admission to study Food and Nutrition Science, while the two others are still in secondary school.
How is she coping? Mrs Akunyiba attributed her success to divine intervention. “It is God that is helping me to train them. We have been neglected by the government and some of us are already quitting agriculture out of frustration”.
Perhaps, these women’s testimonies would have been different if government had demonstrated appreciable commitment to various policies designed to promote agriculture considering the critical position they occupy in the food production chain.
According to the National Gender Policy in Agriculture, women carry out about 80% of agricultural production, 60% of processing activities as well 50% of animal husbandry and related activities.
While smallholder farmers are said to constitute about 70% of the nation’s total farming population, majority of them are women and are involved in the entire agriculture value chain.
Unfortunately, these hardworking-working women have access to less than twenty per cent (20%) of agricultural assets, including land, capital and other factors of production.
In dissecting the situation, an agriculture value chain Expert, Mr Abraham Ogwu, regretted that the access problem has undermined the productive capacity of the smallholder women farmers, who have been unable to take good advantage of various innovations in the sector.
“There are innovations coming up everyday all through the value chain, production, processing, marketing and others. But because smallholder women farmers lack support and empowerment, some of the innovations have not been able to improve their lots”.
Interactions with small scale women farmers in Idemili North and South, Orumba North and South as well as Nnewi North and Anambra East Local Government Areas, revealed long neglect by the federal and Anambra State governments.
“We have not gotten anything from them whether the CBN Anchor Borrowers, the Bank of Agriculture, NIRSAL and other institutions,” Mrs Akunyiba lamented.
How effective are the agric policies and programmes?
The neglect of small scale women farmers in Anambra State does not result from lack of policies and interventions within the sector, but is due to what experts termed “the poor and uncommitted attitude” of the government to those interventions – and these exist at both state and federal levels.. The long list of existing policies include: the Anchor Borrowers Programme, ABP, the Commercial Agriculture Credit Scheme (CACS), the Agricultural Credit Support Scheme, (ACSS) and Grow and Earn More Program, (GEM), among others.
The Anchor Borrowers Programme was initiated by the Central Bank of Nigeria, in 2015 to link anchor companies and smallholder farmers of key agricultural commodities such as: rice, maize, wheat, cassava, yam and potato etc as well as livestock farmers, through the provision of loans, agricultural equipment and blueprints on how to tackle farming challenge.
The Commercial Agriculture Credit Scheme (CACS), was jointly established by the CBN and the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to promote commercial agricultural enterprises in Nigeria, while the main thrust of the Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending, NIRSAL, is to fix the agricultural value chain and boost the confidence of the banks to lend to the value chain, by offering them strong incentives and technical assistance.
On its part, the Bank of Agriculture offers numerous products and services to farmers but only its Grow and Earn More Program, (GEM), targeted at encouraging Nigerian women to embrace agriculture as a business. With maximum loan limit of N1million naira per individual, the beneficiaries must be small holders who don’t need collaterals, but acceptable guarantors with verifiable income as well as NIRSAL Credit Risk Guarantee to cover 75% of loan delinquency.
Apart from these programmes, Nigeria is a signatory to many international instruments and conventions, with several policies including the Agriculture Promotion Policy 2016-2020, which among other things identifies the need to maximize the contributions of women to agricultural production and the elimination of discriminatory practices, while the Nigerian Gender Policy seeks to remove all gender-based barriers facing women in agricultural production by giving them access to critical resources such as: land, capital, credit, farm inputs, technology, water and extension services, preservation and storage, markets, etc.
The 12-month, N2.3 trillion Nigerian Economic Sustainability Plan (NESP), was initiated to help different categories of Nigerians including smallholder farmers with key interventions like the Mass Agricultural Programme (MAP), aimed at achieving cultivation of between 20,000 and 100,000 hectares new farmlands in every state and support off-take and agro-processing, with low-interest credit.
The Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women, (CEDAW) adopted in 1979 by the United Nations General Assembly, mandates state parties to mainstream gender considerations in all policies, plans, laws and their implementation. Similarly, the Malabo Declaration, which Nigeria committed itself to in 2014, recommends a minimum of 10% yearly budget investment in agriculture. It also specifically tasks the governments of member-states to support and facilitate preferential entry and participation of women and youth in gainful and attractive agri-business opportunities.
Goal 2 of the Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs, targets doubling by 2030, the agricultural productivity and incomes of small-scale food producers, particularly women, indigenous peoples, family farmers, pastoralists and fishers, through secure and equal access to land, other productive resources and inputs, knowledge, financial services, markets and opportunities for value addition and non-farm employment.
Although these programmes, policies and international instruments have been of immense help to many farmers, investigations revealed that a greater percent of smallholder farmers in Anambra State have not reaped their benefits.
Mrs Felicia Ileka in Nnewi, Nnewi North Local Government Area, is 86 years old and has obvious difficulty in moving about. But, her passion for agriculture was not hidden, as she proudly owns a number of farms, a little distance away from her residence.
Fortunately, the octogenarian farmer with experience spanning over fifty years, has unfettered access to land resource, which is one of the biggest challenges confronting average women farmers. She narrated her voyage into farming.
“My father and mother were great farmers and since I was not fortunate to go to school, due to low premium placed on female education then, I inherited farming from them. I have been a farmer for several decades”.
Assistance from the government would have made a lot difference but Mrs Ileka has never been so lucky all these years. That is why despite all her efforts to cultivate as much as she could, several hectares of land still lie fallow and uncultivated.
“It’s only my children helping me as God blesses them. At my age now, I need modern farming implement and equipment. I can no longer cope with the ancient method of farming”.
Driving from the centre of Ufuma, in Orumba North Local Government Area, to Mrs Stellamaris Egbuonu’s farm, took about forty minutes. And from the point where driving became impossible to the farm is a trekking distance of another ten minutes. It was a cassava farm fast growing into maturity. Asked how they were getting prepared for this year’s farming season? Mrs Egbuonu responded with the challenges confronting them.
“In this area, we produce garri. But, government is not helping us. I can do more than I am doing now. There are virgin lands everywhere but we don’t have the money to cultivate them. Getting labourers now is very costly, the prices of various inputs are also on the high side. Government should remember us,” she pleaded.
Close to Mrs Egbuonu’s farms is that of Mrs Theresa Okolo, who lives in a small house, which portrays her status as a smallholder farmer who is barely surviving. She is desirous of expanding the size of her farm but she could not raise the money to acquire the land. The only assistance she gets is from her son, who often sends money to advance her agricultural vocation.
The soft-spoken woman hopes that things get better in the coming days, particularly with financial and other forms of assistance from the federal and state governments, which she anticipated will enable her to increase production level from the current two to three plots.
“As you see me, I have not known any government as a farmer. They never give me anything. I am only struggling to survive”.
Budgets not working for us
Apart from policies and international instruments not achieving their intended purposes, the women have not felt the benefits of annual budgets of the state and federal governments.
A study by Centre for Social Justice, a Non Governmental Organization, reveals a dis-connect between the policies and annual budgets. For instance, while the Malabo Declaration mandates member-states to earmark ten per cent of their total annual budget to agriculture, the reality from the state and federal budget is less than three percent.
The total capital expenditure of Anambra State Government was N110.979 billion in 2015 but only N1.384 billion was provided for projects and programmes that would benefit smallholder farmers. When the total capital expenditure declined to N52.696 billion in 2016, the provision for smallholder farmers was reduced to N706 million. The provision for the farmers went further down to N546 million in 2017 notwithstanding the upward review of the total capital expenditure to N63.282 billion.
When there was a further rise in the total capital expenditure in 2018 to N106.432 billion, the provision for the small scale farmers also rose to N3.17 billion. The total capital expenditure suffered a downward trend in 2019 to N91.835 billion, just as the allocation to smallholder farmers got reduced to N1.58 billion.
In percentage, only 1.25% of the state total capital expenditure was for capital projects targeted at smallholder farmers in 2015. It increased to 1.34% in 2016 and declined to .86% in 2017. It increased to 2.98% in 2018 before 2019 saw a decrease to 1.72%.
The budget lines were for various projects such as: Seed Multiplication and Horticultural Development Project, fertilizer procurement and distribution, Agricultural Extension Information Services, procurement of agro inputs, IDA support to National FADAMA Development Project (NFDP–III), IFAD/FGN Support for Value Chain Development Programme (VCDP) and Produce Storage and Fumigation Scheme.
Others are: Co-operative credit scheme, State Programme on Food and Nutrition, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) project, poverty eradication programme and loan grant, micro credit loan for women cooperatives as well as purchase of equipment for Women Co-operative Societies (WCS).
The above statistics are considered poor given that eight different Ministries, Departments and Agencies, MDAs, in the state made provisions for smallholder farmers in their annual budgets with the period.
The MDAs are: Agricultural Development Project, ADP, Fisheries and Aquaculture Development Commission, Office of the Governor as well as Ministries of Agriculture, Economic Planning, Budget and Development Partners, Environment, Social Welfare, Children and Women Affairs and Ministry of Trade, Commerce, Markets and Wealth Creation.
At the federal level, only 1.2% of the nation’s total budget was allocated to agriculture in 2016. It was 1.82% in 2017 and rose to 2.23% in 2018. It declined to 1.85% in 2019.
Despite receiving an average of one point six percent of the total budget over the five years, with an average of fifty-nine point five two percent committed to capital expenditure, the actual release averaged fifty-six percent for the four years.
Out of over N415 billion total capital budget for agriculture for the period 2015 to 2019, only about 19.4 billion naira, representing about 4.6% was allocated to women farmers. The study by Centre for Social Justice equally found that most allocations to women farmers during the period were lumped together with youths, making it difficult for women farmers to enjoy the funds.
Also, of concern is the fact that most of the projects and programmes budgeted for over the years did not enjoy actual release of funds. So, they were either abandoned or put on hold, all to the detriment of the farmers, who are the target beneficiaries. Worse still, the funds that were released and targeted at women farmers did not get to the intended beneficiaries.
Lamentations about climate change, herdsmen and poor road network
In Anambra State, competition for land has become fiercer as a result of erosion, flooding which are adverse consequences of climate change. Despite being one of the smallest in the country in terms of landmass, the state is threatened on every side with almost one thousand active gullies, which has naturally reduced the size of arable and cultivable land in the area.
During the tour of various communities, hectares of rice fields as well as yam and cassava farms submerged by flood last year, were still in their devastated state, as they were yet to be re-cultivated.
Gullies have rendered arable lands in various parts of the state useless for agricultural purposes, while thousands of residents have been sacked from their residential homes.
The year 2020 was one some farmers in the state don’t pray to experience again, due to losses they incurred as a result of the flooding and other harsh impacts of climate change such as drought, pests and diseases.
Mrs Rosemary Onwuegbuka has a large family of six children and three other dependents. She lives in Ayamelum Local Government Area but has her rice farm at Eziaguluotu-Aguleri, in Anambra East Local Government Area, a distance of more than one hour.
Her rice farm spanning hectares of land was among those submerged during the 2020 flood episode, a situation that has plunged her into unprecedented hardship. She now finds it pretty difficult to meet up with family obligations including payment of tuition of her school-age children.
“Since flood carried everything, we cannot pay back the money we borrowed. I can’t even pay school fees. Just last week, somebody training my son in a vocation in Aguleri, stopped him from coming because I have not paid the balance of N14,000 I was owing. If my rice farm was not destroyed last year, I will have the money to do all those things”.
Since the whole community is naturally prone to flooding, Mrs Onwuegbuka has no option than to replant her rice on the same piece of land, hoping that she will be able to harvest before the next flood episode. She also believed that prompt assistance from the government can help them to recover from what has become perennial loss.
While reacting to the poser on why she decided to re-cultivate her rice in the flood prone area, she said: “The land is our inheritance and we have no other one. We went back there. Had it been they give us support, we would have started early so that by the end of June, July, we will harvest”.
“Now, we need cash, inputs and machine to clear virgin lands we want to cultivate. We also need fertilizer, herbicide. If they give us cash, we can use it to buy whatever we need”.
Investigations revealed that livestock farmers were not spared as some of them had their poultry, piggery and fish ponds washed away. The experience of Mrs Stellamaris Egbuonu was different. A part of her farm was affected by drought in 2020 and the impact is still obvious as at the time of visit. That part of the farm has suffered stunted growth and is not as healthy as the part which enjoyed adequate rainfall. This, again, means loss of revenue for Mrs Egbuonu.
Recounting her experience, Mrs Stellamaris Egbuonu said: “You can see this one is not looking good like the other one. When it started growing last year, rain stopped for some weeks and the heat almost killed the cassava. This farm is almost a year old. But, if we harvest it now, the yield will be very low”.
An Environmental Expert with the Agricultural Transformation Agenda Support Programme, ATASP-1 in Adani-Omor Zone, Jane Nwabachili, agreed that the changing climate is dealing a big blow to the entire world while Nigeria and Anambra State are not exempted.
“Most agricultural activities depend on steady weather, water and soil. So, farmers suffer more when these conditions become unpredictable. The consequences of continued temperature rise such as stronger storms, dangerous heat waves, rise in sea levels, translate to crop failures, income loss and food insecurity for farmers and the society”
“Climate change affects the availability of surface water and as a result, rural women whose duty it is to fetch water for their families have to go long distances. This increases their already substantial work load. Again, women often have more limited rights than men in this part of the world, limited mobility and access to resources, information and decision making authorities. As a result, any slight change significantly impacts on them climate change inclusive,”the Environmental Expert regretted.
Perhaps, the greatest challenge confronting food production in different parts of the country today is open grazing of cattle with its increasing destructive impacts on lives and livelihoods.
It accounts for incessant clashes between farmers and herders, particularly in remote agrarian communities, leading to destruction of lives, farm produce and property worth millions of naira.
People of Ufuma, in Orumba North Local Government Area, are yet to recover from the loss they incurred when their farms were visited by the herders months ago. The development has gravely slowed down activities at one of the active garri processing mills located at Umuagu village.
The leader of the women co-operative, which owns the mill, Mrs Stella Onuchukwu, shed more light on the development.
“Fulani herdsmen carried cows and went into all the farms around here, uprooted the cassava and used them to feed their cows. Now, you don’t see cassava to buy even in the market. That is why this place is this scanty. We are now waiting for all these new ones to mature, so that our business will start again,” she lamented.
Mrs Eucharia Okeke, the only woman at the mill during the visit, bemoaned the situation, which has denied them the reward of their hard labour.
“If you come here during Easter like this or Christmas time, you will not find a place to sit down. Now, there is no cassava again. If you see them on your farm, you dare not challenge them or they do whatever they like to you”.
The South-East Governors Forum recently pronounced a ban on open grazing in all the five states of Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo. However, women farmers believed such pronouncement will not make any difference without legislations to give it the legal backing.
Allegation of corruption
Many of the women blamed their woes on corrupt public officials, who they accused of often diverting what is meant for them to political farmers.
Mrs Rosemary Onwuegbuka, the rice farmer, who is struggling to get back on her feet after the devastation caused by flooding last year, is frustrated with the several unfulfilled promises from the state and federal governments.
Unfortunately, the only human object on which she could readily pour her venomous anger was the reporter, who made effort to feel her pulse on the impacts of previous budgets and government policies on her.
From the phone conversation, she was resolute not to grant any interview on the issue but for the tenacity of the reporter, who eventually prevailed on her to grant this interview even if for the last time. And when she eventually obliged, it was all lamentation.
“Let me just tell you the truth, I am sick of all these pranks since 2007. They keep calling us for seminars and workshops and, at the end, they will release whatever to politicians who have no farm. All the palliatives that government claimed to have released to cushion the impacts of COVID-19 on Nigerians, we did not receive any”.
A Professor of Economics and current Dean of Faculty, Social Sciences, Nnamdi Azikiwe University Awka, Uche Collins Nwogwugwu, who also agreed that corruption stands in-between smallholder women farmers and government interventions, stressed the need for the government to genuinely and urgently tackle the problem.
“There is no playing the ostrich. Those, who divert incentives and interventions meant for the poor farmers are in the government. If they want to stop corruption today, they have the capability, power and authority to do so. What they probably lack is the political will power to end corruption”.
We are undeterred by challenges
Limiting the challenges confronting small scale women farmers in Anambra State to lack of access to agricultural incentives, does not do justice to them.
Their problems have been worsened by the deplorable condition of most roads leading to farms or linking them to markets, a reality, which questions the commitment of authorities’ to making agriculture an interesting business.
As a result of bad road network, transporting farm produce to urban centres is with great difficulty and at exorbitant rate. This expectedly results in post-harvest loss on an annual basis as recounted by the women farmers including Mrs Stellamaris Egbuonu, who also bemoaned lack of storage facilities.
“You see where we drove from and the distance we have trekked. If I harvest, you can imagine the difficulty in taking the products to town. If you will get bike or motor that will convey the products to our town and neighbouring communities, you are ready to pay whatever price the driver or rider calls”.
“We have no standard storage facilities. So, we are forced to sell our products at give away prices, which never justified the drudgery and pains of planting them”.
However, the women are resolute in their determination to continue producing food for the ever growing population.
In their quest for a reversal of fate, they have come up with a Charter of Demands, which among other things demand for access to interest-free loan from the government, provision of gender-friendly machinery such as: tillers, ploughs, harvesters, etc at subsidized rates, provision of extension services in their communities, hatchery machine and access to quality feeds for poultry farming, water for irrigation farming and construction of boreholes for poultry and piggery farmers.
Of topmost importance to them is linkage to off-takers and increased markets information systems, construction of good roads for easy evacuation of produce, establishment of local security bodies and mechanisms to reduce insecurity including farmer-herder crisis as well as provision of climate resilient farming training to improve soil infertility.
Mrs Stella Onuchukwu aptly captures their resolve. “We are not discouraged at all. If not for any other thing, we can fend for our families. We will continue helping ourselves and if we have anything from the government, we will consider it as a boost. Let them try us and we will surprise them. The only thing is they should get people to monitor how we use what they give us”.
As a way of improving the lots of women in agriculture, the Value Chain Expert, Mr Ogwu, recommended women focused interventions from government and Non-Governmental Organizations, NGOs, which can help in breaking the vicious circle of poverty in many Nigerian households, a situation he argued also adversely affects the nation’s economy in the long run.
“Also, women need to occupy positions of authority so that they can influence certain policies and decisions in favour of fellow women. If the CBN, Bank of Agriculture or NIRSAL is headed by a woman, I’m sure she will make policies that will affect the women folks positively. We need NGOs that will build the capacity of the women assert themselves”.
We have not abandoned any farmer – Anambra Govt
Commenting on various issues raised by the women farmers, the Programme Manager, Agricultural Development Programme, ADP in the state, Mr Jude Nwankwo, explained that the administration of Governor Willie Obiano, which made agriculture its number pillar, has not discriminated against anyone on the basis of gender.
“Whether they are SWOFON or whatever, we have the data of all farmers. We have a unit called WIA, (Women in Agriculture), which deals specifically with women. And when any project comes in, the women are not neglected”.
“But, you know, some people prefer to stay away and be passing funny comments. They want to see someone that has benefitted before they come in. There is a nationwide collation of data of all farmers and Anambra is in it. When our enumerators met some of them, they were very skeptical. That is part of the problems”.
The ADP Programme Manager, who acknowledged appropriating amounts lower than recommended to the agriculture sector, attributed it to the economic realities over the years as well as other sectors contending for attention.
“Also, the pandemic has dealt seriously with the global economy. Besides, there are several other sectors that need budgetary allocations. So, getting to the ten percent is a gradual process. I believe over time, we’ll be there”.
While calling on the small scale women farmers to seek useful information from the right sources, Nwankwo equally stressed the need for them to be persistent with their demands.
“Probably, they were hurt by the previous regime, but we are serious. We are not corrupt. Our business is nothing but agriculture and we know that these small scale women farmers are the ones making things happen in agriculture”.
“As I am talking to you now, a lot of things are happening. I am telling them now – come out, go to the agric department in your local government and ask the extension agents what you want to know about the Ministry of Agriculture. That’s why they are paid”.
On the allegation of corruption and diversion of interventions, Mr Nwankwo said: “Whether they are SWOFON or not, we don’t discriminate. On the issue of diversion of cassava stems, we have been distributing various species of cassava for several years. And as a result of that, some farmers now have them in their farms, which they cut and sell during the planting season. How can you call it diversion just because you know that what was distributed was of the same specie?”.Mr Nwankwo inquired.
Mitigating climate change
Research in Climate Change has shown the imperative of developing climate adaptation technologies, which will advance agricultural activities, while investment in Smart Agriculture has been identified as capable of helping to curb incidences of flood, drought, pests and diseases.
On the part of the state government, Mr Nwankwo explained that the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has always provided the farmers with useful information that will help them to cope better with the impacts of climate change.
“We have best practices officers on the field who advise the farmers especially those in flood prone areas on what to do so that they can harvest before flood comes. And for victims of flood, we have always shared inputs as soon as the flood recedes, so that they will have what to plant in the new farming season”.
Nwankwo assured that the future holds greater promises for all categories of farmers in the area as the Ministry has procured additional tractors to boost mechanized agriculture. “So, let them come out and access all that we are doing. We cannot do without the small scale farmers. And they must know that we are here for them”.
This report was produced with the support of the International Budget Partnership, IBP and the International Centre for Investigative Reporting, ICIR.
