Growing and gathering vegetables is an extremely important livelihood activity for women in rural Nigeria, who make up a majority of the rural labour force. Vegetables are major foodstuffs for poor rural women and their families, as they often cannot afford staples such as milk, eggs, and meat.
New technologies and approaches must be developed to improve farming practices. Doing so will increase the range of commercially viable vegetable varieties that are grown, and will improve nutrition, income, and food security for Nigeria’s rural poor.
The Canadian International Food Security Research Fund is supporting a project on vegetable agriculture in Nigeria.
The research
This project, supported by
IDRC and
DFATD through the
Canadian International Food Security Research Fund (CIFSRF), will study 10 varieties of local vegetables in southwest Nigeria to assess their nutritional content, drought tolerance, and disease-resistance. Researchers will work with rural female farmers to conduct agronomic experiments, marketing and value addition studies, and nutritional and economic analyses.
The goal is to provide tools for better production, processing, and marketing of these locally important vegetables. This will enhance food security, economic growth, and conservation of valuable vegetable species, all of which will help empower rural women in Nigeria.
Expected outcomes
- Increased awareness of the nutritional value and potential of under-researched vegetables
- Diversified and increased income for rural women through improved production and marketing opportunities
- Improved environmental sustainability through better soil fertility management and soil and water conservation
- Increased capacity of women farmers, scientists, non-governmental organizations, and government agencies in vegetable production, processing, and marketing
- Creation of a community-run monitoring system to assess the impact of crop diversification on resource use and the environment.
Lead Researchers
- Prof. Durodoluwa J. Oyedele, Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria.
- Prof. Odunayo C. Adebooye, Osun State University, Nigeria.
- Dr. Thomas Bouman, Cape Breton University, Canada.
- Prof. Wole O. Akinremi, University of Manitoba, Canada.
Funding: CA$2.9 million
Duration: March 2011 to August 2014
For more information on this project, contact Pascal Sanginga,
Senior Program Specialist, Nairobi, Kenya (psanginga@idrc.ca) or
Kevin Tiessen, Senior Program Officer, Ottawa, Canada
(ktiessen@idrc.ca)
You might also like:
This article was first published on 12th August 2013
Comments (0)
