The project Our Land, Our Right is strengthening the capacity of women through the cooperative, to gain access to farmland, which they ordinarily could not achieve at an individual level since women are culturally prohibited from owning land. The project focuses on : a. Strengthening the co-operative and positioning it better to access funds and agricultural credit facilities b. Strengthening the advocacy and influencing capacity of members to be able to engage traditional strongholds that will pave way for them to access land c. Supporting the co-operative to secure farmland for the use of members of the co-operative  

“It was a Saturday evening. My children and I came back from my husband’s farm, very tired and hungry yet without anything to eat in the house. I went to my neighbour’s house to beg for some foodstuffs. Lo and behold!  My neighbour even as wealthy as her husband was, didn’t have any food in their store. We spent the entire night discussing a way out of our predicament. She (my neighbour) suggested that we and other women with similar condition should put our heads together and venture into group farming. Until February 2008 the then Supervisory councillor for women affairs advised us to register the group. By July 2008 we had a fully registered cooperative society with the Nigerian Agricultural Bank.” A woman rigthsholder from Plateau State. 

Access to land and credit remains a key challenge to families in Plateau State, Nigeria.  Cultural beliefs and practices hinder women from owning land and limits their access to the same land even within their marriage while women remain the primary caregivers to their children. They struggle to gain access to land for farming, which then leads to food security for their families.  

The Hoomsen Women Farmers’ Co-operative Society is a co-operative society registered by two groups of women farmers who both began as an association of twenty women farmers, located in a small farming village called Namess in Shepwan community of Shendam Local Government Area in Plateau State. They saw the need to come together and support each other at individual and group level through communal farming activities, at times for a fee or as support to members. The Co-operative is currently made up of forty fully registered members. As a registered co-operative group they cultivate jointly, harvest, store and later sell their harvest in the market.  Some of the proceeds go back into the co-operative’s account to serve as a loan to members during the lean farming season during which food is scarce in some households.  In this way they have access to credit, but they are also growing economically as a group.    

The project Our Land, Our Right by the Cooperative aimed at strengthening the capacity of women to gain access to farmland, which they ordinarily could not manage to do as individuals since women are culturally prohibited from owning land. Specifically, they focused on strengthening the co-operative and positioning it better to access funds and agricultural credit facilities, strengthening advocacy and influencing capacity of members to be able to engage traditional strongholds that will pave way for them to access land and support the co-operative to secure farmland for the use of members of the co-operative. 

The project learned some key lessons during its implementation. One of these lessons is that it is critical to partner with other groups including Civil Society and Non-Governmental Organisations with similar goals and objectives to support each other. It is also important to consult the works of other groups or NGOs who have executed similar projects and use their shared experience to do better. They organize to build capacity through workshops and trainings, maintain effective communication links both within and outside the group and carry out proper consultations with stakeholders to achieve set goals.