WUNRN
FAO - Food & Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations - 2001 Report
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THE STATE WOMEN IN AGRICULTURE Download Flyer - 1.2Mb Download Full PDF - 3.3Mb |
THE GENDER GAP IN AGRICULTURE
Agriculture is underperforming in many developing countries for a number of reasons. Among these is the fact that women lack the resources and opportunities they need to make the most productive use of their time. Women are farmers, workers and entrepreneurs, but almost everywhere they face more severe constraints than men in accessing productive resources, markets and services. This “gender gap” hinders their productivity and reduces their contributions to the agriculture sector and to the achievement of broader economic and social development goals. Closing the gender gap in agriculture would produce significant gains for society by increasing agricultural productivity, reducing poverty and hunger and promoting economic growth. Governments, donors and development practitioners now recognize that agriculture is central to economic growth and food security – particularly in countries where a significant share of the population depends on the sector – but their commitment to gender equality in agriculture is less robust. Gender issues are now entioned in most national and regional agricultural and food-security policy plans, but they are usually relegated to separate hapters on women rather than treated as an integral part of policy and programming. Many agricultural policy and project documents still fail to consider basic questions about the differences in the resources available to men and women, their roles and the constraints they face – and how these differences might be relevant to the proposed intervention......
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