WUNRN
Women's Feature Service
Women
Farmers – Rights & Challenges – Potential to Reduce Hunger
By Katherine Rausch
In Kenya, just as in all developing countries,
it's the women who do much of the work on farms - from planting to harvesting
and processing - and yet it's the men who control the land and investments, the
government training programmes are designed for male farmers; and even low
interest agriculture loans are made available largely to them
But if female farmers had stronger legal
rights and more business opportunities millions of people would be better fed,
claims a U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). In its 2011 report, 'The
State of Food and Agriculture', the agency finds that global harvests could
rise by between 2.5 and four per cent if women had stronger rights.
Women produce between 60 per cent and 80
per cent of the food in poorer countries and grow half of the world's food overall.
In sub-Saharan
According to the FAO, 925 million people
are currently undernourished. Closing the gender gap - which leaves female
farmers' yields 20 to 30 per cent lower than their male counterparts - could
reduce undernourishment numbers by between 100 million and 150 million people.
"If people increase agricultural
production, there is more food around for people to eat," says Marcela
Villarreal, director of FAO's Gender, Equity and Rural Employment Division. In
addition to greater food production, Villarreal says increased yields by women
would also generate more income, which could be used to buy food for a woman's
family.
The gender gap in agriculture is tied to
women's weaker access to land rights, financing, modern technologies and ownership
of animals and equipment. In many countries, women do not have the same legal
rights to buy, sell or inherit land, borrow money or open bank accounts, sell
their produce or sign a contract. When women do have similar rights, the law is
not always upheld by government officials.
According to Villarreal, several countries,
such as some in sub-Saharan
On top of barriers to owning land, women
also face other issues such as those related to contract farming, where
large-scale food-processing companies give farmers a commitment to buy a
certain quantity of produce. The report's authors found women are often
excluded from contract farming because they lack the resources to guarantee
delivery.
In
To improve overall agricultural efficiency,
the FAO report recommends strengthening, enforcing and publicising women's
rights to education, landholding and contract making.
In 2003, the African Union committed to
pledging at least 10 per cent of their budgets to increase their countries'
agricultural output. But a look at the progress in 2005 found that the average
budget commitment was 6.6 per cent, with only six of the 24 countries reaching
the intended goal.
When agriculture investment is down, food
production in turn drops. The FAO estimates that additional investments of $83
billion annually will be needed in developing countries to meet food needs in
2050.
Villarreal says countries need to start
changing laws, in addition to investing more time and money, to help close the
gender gap and improve food productivity. "It's really important and I
hope this report is going to help countries make those decisions," she
says, "and realise they have lots to gain in agriculture investment and
being gender sensitive."