ANALYSIS OF WOMEN EMPOWERMENT IN CASSAVA PRODUCTION AND PROCESSING AS A MEANS OF HOUSEHOLD POVERTY STATUS

Women can be described as an indispensible group in the development of any nation (Safiya, 2011). Women play significant and potentially transformative roles in agricultural growth in developing countries, but they face unrelenting obstacles and economic constraints limiting further contribution in agriculture.Women are responsible, in addition to seeking livelihoods, for keeping their homes and providing for their children (Lawanson,2013). Women have great potentials necessary to evolve a new economic order, to accelerate social and political development and consequently transform the society into a better one (Safiya, 2011). Kayodeet al., (2013) described Nigerian women as a crucial factor for production. According to him, they assume this status because they are largely responsible for the bulk of crops production, agro-based food processing, preservation of crops and distribution of outputs or products from farm centers to urban areas. The importance of women in the agricultural development as stated above cannot be overemphasized and this has led to the empowerment of more women in production and processing of various crops such as Cassava, maize and yam. The Government in collaboration with other private bodies has helped to empower women in order to improve their standard of living. Empowering women can mean the provision of sufficient opportunities to women to develop their potentials and contribute to the overall development of the nation. Empowering women particularly in the area of agriculture has been done using cassava which is a low risk crop with high yielding potential and a developed market for its sales.Cassava has been identified as a very powerful poverty fighter by driving down the price of food to millions of consumers (Iheke, 2014).