From Ali Galadima, Bauchi
A Cooperative Society known as Nunkwai based in Bauchi State has received about one point eight million naira (N1. 8mn) grant for groundnut processing as part of effort to empower women engaged in marketing of farm produce.
Speaking at a ceremony marking the disbursement of two hundred thousand naira of the grant to twenty women, the Chairperson of the Society, Mrs. Tabitha Ayuba Salem said part of the money was used to purchase machinery for groundnut processing.
She said “thirty other women who were trained alongside the present beneficiaries would subsequently receive loan from Nunkwi Cooperative Society to boost processing of groundnuts into various products such as groundnut oil, peanut’s and groundnut cake popularly known as Kuli-kuli”.
“We applied for this grant from DEC which is supported by a German based NGO Bread For Life, to assist our women to replace age long manual method of processing groundnuts with modern machinery to reduce their hardship so that they can have maximum benefit from their toil”, Mrs. Tabitha Salem added.
Mrs. Salem urged the beneficiaries to make maximum use of the grant to attract patronage of their products by consumers in Bauchi and other parts of Nigeria.
Earlier, a technical consultant, Mr. Ayuba Salem admonished business women in Bauchi State to embrace modern business methods of keeping records of production costs, sales and profit to ensure judicious use of available resources given to them.
He said experience has shown that “most women fail to keep records of their sales and as such often ended up mismanaging loans or grants given to them to do business.
The one point eight million naira grant from DEC was also used to purchase processing machines including power generator, sievers, grinding machines, oil extractors, manual machine fryer and mechanized machine fryer.
