Education
Land access limits women farmers’ climate resilience – Expert – EnviroNews
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An expert on climate, Mr. Taye Ojo, says limited access to farmland is restricting women farmers’ ability to adopt climate-resilient agricultural practices and improve their livelihoods.
Ojo, Programmes Manager, Development of Education Action Network (DEAN), said this in an interview on Thursday, August 20, 2026, in Abuja.
He said women constituted a large proportion of smallholder farmers but faced barriers to land ownership and access due to traditional and religious practices in some communities.
According to him, such exclusion limited women’s access to productive assets needed to strengthen their livelihoods, improve food production and respond effectively to climate change.
“Traditional and religious systems in some communities do not favour women’s access to land, creating a major obstacle to their agricultural activities.
“The exclusion from those assets becomes a very big problem,” Ojo said.
Ojo said the DEAN Initiative had explored alternative farming approaches for women without sufficient farmland, including small-scale cultivation within household compounds and other available spaces.
He said some climate-smart agricultural practices could be adopted on a small or medium scale without requiring extensive farmland, helping women overcome land access constraints.
“Even within your compound, there are certain lands for farming that you can use, at least on a small or medium scale, which can help reduce the burden of having no farmland,” he said.
Ojo, who is also the Project Lead, DEAN’s Climate Democracy Accelerator Programme, said improving women’s access to productive assets should form part of interventions aimed at strengthening smallholder farmers’ resilience.
According to him, supporting women farmers would strengthen their capacity to contribute to food production, improve household livelihoods and build resilience against climate-related challenges.
He said local governments should consider farmers’ specific needs when preparing budgets and allocating resources to address climate-related agricultural challenges affecting production and livelihoods.
Ojo called for greater access to climate-smart agricultural practices that could help farmers adapt to changing weather conditions and reduce the impact of climate-related risks.
He urged governments and other stakeholders to prioritise interventions that would reduce farmers’ production costs, improve access to productive resources and strengthen their capacity to adapt to climate change.
By Martha Agas
