Women Empowerment through Climate Smart Agriculture

RUDEC’s foundation is built on women empowerment and we have been working on this since creation. In a bid to tackle hunger and malnutrition through fortifying food supply in communities, RUDEC targets women farmers in the grassroots. We train, equip and empower women in village and semi urban communities to be small scale food, producers, processers and marketing of food crops such crops include cassava, maize, yam, coco yam, okro and other varieties of vegetables and tubers.

How It Works

We train women on food crop production in association with agro-forestry practices and these practices include: inter cropping, composting, organic manure for soil fertility enhancement , zero or very little tilling before planting, Mulching, Green manuring , alley cropping with such species as cassia, moringa, tefrosia, pigeon pea, tectona and several leguminae. Women are also trained on efficient methods of processing cassava. We educate on financial literacy and they have been trained on how to create artificial scarcity of processed products so as to get better prices.

Long-Term Impact

Women groups have now left rudimentary methods of processing cassava through this program. Post harvest losses have been reduced drastically to less than 20%. Drastic improvement in the livelihood of women farmers, decrease in hunger & malnutrition, efficient food supply in communities.

Integration

The program is integrated with community development and social/economic justice, gender mainstreaming and women empowerment. In various interventions, it encourages public/private partnerships and applies appropriate technologies in food processing.

SDG Engagement

The program has been actively engaged in the following Sustainable Development Goals: 1, 2, 5, 10, 11, 17