By Janet Samuel
The Farms, Flowers and Allied Products Initiative (FFAPI) has taken a bold step toward strengthening food security and empowering women at the grassroots through a sensitization programme on backyard farming held on Wednesday, in Abuja.
The event, which brought together development partners, women leaders, and community participants, focused on equipping women with practical skills to grow food sustainably in their homes, reduce household food costs, and increase resilience in the face of rising food prices and climate change.
World Population Day; NCWS Advocates More Attention For Vulnerable Persons
In her keynote address, President of FFAPI and convener of the initiative, Christy Sani Yakubu, welcomed participants and emphasized that backyard farming is more than just planting vegetables , it is a transformative tool for household sustainability and women’s economic empowerment.
“It is a powerful tool for household resilience, especially for women who are often the primary providers of food and nutrition within the family,” she stated.
She encouraged participants to exchange ideas and explore how small spaces,whether in containers or backyard plots can become productive, income-yielding assets.
Lending her strong voice in support, the National President of the National Council of Women Societies (NCWS), Princess Edna D. D. Azura, who was represented by the News Letter Editor, Comfort Ahua, described the initiative as timely, visionary, and in direct alignment with NCWS’s advocacy for women-led food systems.
“Backyard farming is a life-changing tool for food security, nutrition, and economic resilience,” she declared in her remarks, called on stakeholders to invest more in empowering women through practical, grassroots solutions that tackle food insecurity and poverty from the home front.
“Let us move from backyard gardens to agribusiness boardrooms,” she said. “With unity, commitment, and knowledge, we can reshape the agricultural future of our country, one empowered woman at a time.”
The Dorothy Njemanze Foundation (DNF), in its goodwill message, affirmed that backyard farming contributes not just to food production but also to women’s dignity, healing, and economic independence.
“For many of the women and girls we support, programs like this offer more than skills, they offer hope, healing through productivity and purpose,” the Foundation stated. DNF commended the FFAPI and NCWS for recognizing women as agents of change, stressing that such initiatives create lasting impacts on poverty, marginalization, and community resilience.
“You are planting more than seeds in the soil,” the Foundation said, “you are cultivating transformation.”
Also pledging speaking, Hon. Cornelius Agenyi, Executive Director of the Farmers Aggregators Initiative of Nigeria (FAIN), described the program as both “timely and strategic,” adding that it aligns with national agricultural goals focused on smallholder inclusion.
“Empowering women through backyard farming is not only an innovative way to improve livelihoods. it also reinforces the critical role women play in shaping sustainable agricultural practices,” he said.
He encouraged women on transition from subsistence farming to structured, value-driven agribusiness through opportunities such as this.
A key highlight of the day was an intensive, hands-on training session conducted by a resource person from the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Sunfay obasi, who took participants through practical demonstrations on how to begin backyard farming effectively.
The session ended on a high note with the distribution of seedlings, including tomatoes, pepper, okra, and assorted vegetables to the women, serving as a start-up boost for their home gardens and symbolizing the first step toward household-level agricultural transformation.
