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Women farmers in northern Nigeria reap 2-3 times more cowpea using improved varieties and planting practices

Hajia Hindatu Musa, a 60 year-old female farmer from a small village in northern Nigeria, has been in the business of farming for more than 36 years, growing sorghum, millet, groundnut and local cowpea. In most years, it has been a struggle to meet the basic needs of her family. In years in which rainfall is limited, some crops may fail, and the household will not have sufficient food to last until the next harvest.
Photograph of women farmer in Northern Nigeria standing in front of cowpea harvest

In 2001, Hajia Hindatu Musa joined twenty-one women farmers as a member of the Gamaryawa Women Farmers Association in Garko village of Kano State. As a result, she was anxious to participate in the USAID funded Strategic Seed Project in northern Nigeria, which was designed to teach farmers how to grow improved cowpea and cereal varieties. Through the project, she received a loan to purchase seeds and inputs for cultivating 0.4 ha of land, and received training on agronomic practices, storage and market linkages. At the end of the first farming season, she produced 600 kg of cowpea from where she used to harvest 60 kg. In the current farming season, she produced over 800 kg from the same plot size and earned more than $300 from cowpea sales.

Hajia Hindatu has a new lease of life; growing improved cowpea in the last three years has brought more food to her table, greater income to the household, and improved the fertility of the soil. From the sales she made in the past two years, she had paid off her debts, and purchased a grinding machine for commercial purposes. She also plans to rent more cropland to increase her cowpea production in the coming 2004 season. Hajia is full of thanks to USAID for bringing this life saving technology to her village and helping her out of perpetual debt cycle.
“I have been farming for the past 36 years, but what I realized from growing improved cowpea in the last three years surpasses all my 36 years of farming put together”.