The Lagos State Ministry of Women Affairs and Poverty Alleviation (WAPA) has reiterated its commitment to empower more women.
Mrs Bolaji Dada, the Lagos State Commissioner for Women Affairs and Poverty Alleviation said this in a statement on Thursday in Lagos.
Dada made the commitment after the conclusion of a 3-day training on maize and cassava production.
She said the programme was part of activities to train 250 women at the grassroots on farm management and crop production, adding that no woman would be left behind.
” WAPA will not concentrate on supporting economic progress of city women alone but we are also going all out to groom grassroots women to use natural resources, as a means of generating income.
“The ministry had in recent time touched various areas of agricultural practices such as vegetable farming, snail rearing, grasscutter breeding, among others.
“This time around we will concentrate on cassava and maize cultivation, cassava processing, branding and marketing, as a way to help our trainees attain an open market standard, using entrepreneurial capabilities.
“This is not about going all out in local marketing practice, but rather getting trainees acquainted with packaging and branding , in accordance with the Standards Organisations of Nigeria.
“Our target is to expand our scope for enhanced agricultural practices that will assist our women in supporting their homes, as adequately as possible .
“We are also planing to bring other forms of food processing and cultivation to fore before the end of the year too,” the commissioner said.
The Director of Poverty Alleviation Unit in the ministry, Mrs Oluwatoyin Salami, applauded the commissioner and the permanent secretary for their unwavering support by engaging grassroots women in agricultural education.
“We have trained 250 volunteers on modern techniques of cassava and maize cultivation with improved and high yielding seedlings for 10 months.
“This was done in batches and plots of farmlands were given to them to exhibit their learning potential on their demonstration plots.
“We choose to start now, since it is the onset of rainfall which didn’t happen, until recently.”
Salami said that the demonstration plots of trainees would be assessed monthly through farm assessors to rate them. (NAN)
