By: Monday Danladi, Bauchi
100 different species of economic trees have been donated to Women Farmers Association, Bauchi State to promote tree planting for the protection and beautification of the environment.
The donation was made on Saturday by the Project Management Unit of the Agro-Climatic Resilience in Semi-Arid Landscape (ACReSAL), Bauchi during a training organised by the Bauchi State College of Agriculture Women Farmers Multipurpose Cooperative Society for backyard farming to encourage planting and ownership of trees by women in the state.
In a goodwill message, the State Project Coordinator, Dr Ibrahim Kabir said that, the donation was to include women in the One person One Tree initiative introduced by Bauchi ACReSAL.
The move is to encourage planting and ownership of trees by the general public to fight the lingering environmental challenges and mitigate the effects of climate change.
The SPC who was represented by the Project’s Gender Officer, Maimuna G Aliyu, said that ACReSAL Project considered women as critical stakeholders in its implementation procedures.
He added that the project office will continue supporting Women groups in it’s quest to address the lingering environmental challenges in the state.
The SPC commended efforts by the BASCOA Multi-purpose Cooperative Society to empower women in backyard farming, which is encouraging, calling on other women groups to emulate them.
As a Gender Officer, Maimuna Aliyu used the occasion to call on the women to always come out of their shell and contribute their quota, not only in the environmental sector, but in all aspects of human endeavours.
In his remarks, the Provost of the College welcomed the participants to the important occasion and commended the organisers for their foresight in bringing women from the different walks of life to train them with the view to empower them and to contribute their quota in addressing the effects of climate change.
He called for collaborative efforts from all the stakeholders to achieve sustainable development.
Earlier in her opening remarks, the Chairperson of the Women Farmers Multipurpose Cooperative society, BASCOA, Hajiya Amina Haruna said the training was organised to encourage and empower women to be self-reliant through various means of household businesses related to Agriculture (Backyard Farming) towards mitigating the effects of climate change.
She added that, the event was the byproduct of an earlier programme supported by WOFAN to BASCOA on maize farming to showcase the impact of the intervention and invited Agricultural experts, specialists from different higher institutions of learning and related MDAs to enlighten women in small space farming activities for livelihoods enhancement.
She added that the trees donated by ACReSAL will go a long way in mitigating the effects of climate change.
In a closing remark, the SA to the State Governor on Agriculture, Dr Aliyu Ilyasu Gital commended organisation’s foresight and encouraged knowledge sharing which will help in disseminating information to the general public, pledging government supports to such organisations towards attaining food security in the state.
The event had in attendance officials from ACReSAL,ATBU, BASCOA, BASEPA, BSADP, The Media, Women groups, among others as contained in a statement by Bauchi ACReSAL
Communications Unit.
