Hadiza Muhammed Kola is an retired nurse and a famous female farmer that has been treading the path of men for well over 20 years doing two tasking jobs at the same. In this interview, she speaks with NationsPridecorrespondent, HARUNA USMAN, on her challenges as a community nurse and a female farmer. Except:
You are a professional nurse and a farmer how have you been managing the two jobs that both require your attention?
To be honest with you, it has not been easy; nursing work alone is too tasking and time demanding, not to talk of farming. But I draw my strength from the fact that I love both jobs. My passion to help patients as a nurse drew me to nursing work and farming is what I have chosen to feed myself and my relatives in the village. So, despite the practical challenges and stress from the two jobs, I remain focused and determined to achieve what I set for myself.
How did you started farming, and do you have a personal farm?
No, I don’t have a personal farm, I began with a hired farm; a small portion which I annually get at least seven to 20 bags of rice depending on crop yield. Then there was no dry-season farming and at that time I had little funding because I used part of my salary to fund my hired farm and feed with some part of it. That’s how I have been managing, but now I have a personal farm which I inherited from my late father at Kola village.
Now that you have retired from active service, any improvement in your farming life?
Yes, I have now graduated from a peasant farmer to a cash crop farmer, because I can now harvest up to 300 bags of rice, millet, maize, guinea corn and beans, but for the over twenty years that I have been farming, I have never sold any of my farm produce. I ate some and also gave to my relatives in the village, but now, Alhamdulilah, I have enough to eat, sale and give to my people in the village.
You have complaint of funding, did you get any assistance from the federal government or state?
No, there has been call for farmers to come forward for loan, but I didn’t go because I don’t like loans. When President Bola Tinubu and Governor Nasir Idris came on board, I benefited from them. I got five hundred thousand from Nigeria’s first lady, Senator Remi Tinubu, the one she disbursed to female farmers in Kebbi and the wife of Kebbi governor, Zainab Nasare Idris, gave me some money and bags of fertiliser to boost my farming.
Talking about Remi Tinubu, she has introduced home gardening, are you into it too?
Yes, courtesy of that I have planted sweet potatoes in many sacks in my house because she introduced it through the governor’s wife to encourage women who are not into farming to use it as their economic mainstay in order to fend for themselves and their husbands. I want to use this opportunity to call on women across the country to key into home gardening as a means of survival, and I commend Nigeria’s first lady for the initiative because in no distant time women will become rich and at the same time push local economy to reduce food inflation in the country.
Finally what’s your worth as a female farmer?
Well, that’s something I won’t say here, but I know since I began farming, I have not lacked food and money including my dependents. We are all doing well. I have a car and a house and many other things to show for it, and my joy is that I have proven men that my gender is not weak we can walk their path and come out victorious.
