Yusuf made the call on Wednesday while delivering the 23rd Inaugural Lecture of the university, titled “Empowering Women Farmers in Nigeria: Closing the Gender Gap for Agricultural Transformation and Food Security.”

She said removing structural barriers limiting women’s participation in agriculture was necessary to harness the sector’s potential to revive Nigeria’s economy.

Yusuf said empowering women farmers was critical to increasing agricultural productivity, strengthening food security and reducing poverty.

According to her, inheritance laws should guarantee women the right to own and inherit land regardless of their marital status.

She also advocated joint land ownership for married couples, saying discriminatory practices remained major barriers to women’s access to credit, farm inputs and other productive resources.

The don called for expanded gender-inclusive agricultural financing through microcredit schemes that did not require land as collateral.

She urged financial institutions to develop agricultural loan products suited to the realities of women farmers and expand digital financial services to rural communities.

Yusuf also called for reforms in agricultural extension services, including recruiting more female extension agents and adopting flexible training schedules.

She advocated using mobile platforms to provide agricultural advisory services in local languages.

The professor said investment in rural water supply, electricity and childcare infrastructure would reduce women’s unpaid domestic workload and give them more time for farming and agribusiness.

She also recommended greater access to mechanised processing equipment and other labour-saving technologies designed to meet women farmers’ needs.

Yusuf stressed the importance of adult literacy, agricultural training and cooperative organisations in improving women’s management skills, technology adoption and bargaining power.

She called for policies to support income diversification through off-farm employment, agro-processing and entrepreneurship.

According to her, improved roads, electricity and information and communication technology would strengthen rural households’ resilience to agricultural shocks.

Yusuf urged the government and private sector to expand contract farming and credit programmes through public-private partnerships.

She said such schemes should provide farmers with reliable markets, inputs and financing.

The don also advocated investment in post-harvest storage, transportation, cold-chain facilities and market information systems to reduce food losses and enable women farmers to earn more from their produce.

She called for the mainstreaming of eco-friendly agricultural technologies, especially moringa-based bio-organic fertiliser, through extension services, cooperative production networks and soil fertility programmes.

Yusuf urged communities to promote moringa cultivation to ensure steady supplies of raw materials for producing the organic fertiliser.

On policymaking, she called for mandatory gender impact assessments for agricultural development programmes and policies.

She also advocated greater representation of women on policy committees, agricultural boards and farmers’ unions, alongside dedicated budgetary provisions for gender-responsive agricultural investments.

Yusuf called for stronger monitoring mechanisms to assess the impact of such investments.

She said agricultural policies must be integrated with national poverty reduction strategies, noting that food security could not be achieved independently of employment, education and healthcare.

Yusuf said that with an estimated 140 million Nigerians living below the poverty line, coordinated action across sectors had become urgent.

She said closing the gender gap in agriculture was not merely a question of fairness but an essential strategy for transforming Nigeria’s agricultural economy and improving national food security.

(NAN)