Stories tagged: international women’s day

Young, Rural, and Female: Why Agriculture Needs Girls

On International Women’s Day, Laura Glenn O’Carroll, Research Associate at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, outlines findings from their latest report: Girls Leading, which explores why investing in rural girls is critical for solving global hunger.

It’s not easy being a rural girl. Across the globe, only 39 percent of rural girls attend secondary school, compared to 45 percent of rural boys. Most rural economies are based around natural resources, and girls are often the backbone of farming families; girls are largely the ones spending hours carrying water, seeking firewood, and caring for family members.

But an adolescent girl is on the precipice of change. If she is able to remain in school, gain valuable skills, and stay healthy, she can earn an income and invest in her family and her community. If she stops attending school, marries early, and becomes a young mother, her ability to reach her full potential is curtailed. Her loss is our loss as well. The global community cannot advance without these key members.

Recently, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs released the digital report, Girls Leading: From Rural Economies to Global Solutions, chaired by Catherine Bertini, that brought together over 20 diverse authors to share their perspectives on rural girls and their ability to break the cycle of poverty and hunger.

This report builds on our 2011 report, Girls Grow: A Vital Force in Rural Economies. The authors draw from their experiences in academic, legal, NGO, multilateral, diplomatic, private-sector, medical, and technological backgrounds—plus personal experience—to both highlight the needs of rural girls and the solutions to the challenges that they face.

Agriculture is a key lever of this empowerment. More than 60 percent of rural people live in poverty, and women and girls are overrepresented among the poor. By investing in rural girls— and allowing them the same level of access to land, inputs, financing, and education that their male rural counterparts receive—countries could unlock transformative economic development. It has been well documented that whole communities benefit if women earn higher incomes. When women work, they spend nearly all of their income on their family’s well being—nearly 90 percent of their earnings. By comparison, men invest only 35 percent of their income back into their families. This impact multiplies when millions of women are empowered, creating compounding effects that can reshape entire economies and national fortunes.

But female farmers, despite being 40 to 50 percent of the agricultural labor force, continue to see lower yields than male farmers. Female farmers are also burden with domestic roles as well, which can mean that customized support for training, child care, and more are needed in order to reach parity. In sub-Saharan Africa, women carry at least three times more tons per year than men—largely firewood and water—and are responsible for more than 70 percent of household labor. In Benin and Tanzania, for example, rural women work respectively 17.4 and 14 hours more than men each week. But closing the gender gap could increase agricultural yields by as much as 30 percent, which would mean higher incomes for rural families.

Agricultural development is up to four times more impactful than investments in other sectors for reducing poverty. The world’s youth population—2.3 billion and growing—are increasingly living in low- and middle-income countries where economies are dependent on the successful transformation of agriculture. But infrastructure development is key to realising these gains in rural regions. The potential of rural girls in particular has not been fully realised, as low investment in rural infrastructure and education expansion in both high- and low-income countries disproportionately impacts girls.

As climate change increasingly impacts weather patterns, these gaps will become even more impactful. As the least empowered members of their communities, rural girls are also the most affected by changes in the natural world. Already, nearly 80 per cent of people displaced by climate change are female and rural girls are disproportionately killed or displaced by natural disasters. Additionally, during long-term weather events, such as drought, girls often bear the impact of negative coping strategies. Early marriage rates increase during times of environmental crisis, and girls are often the first to be withdrawn from school when family resources dwindle.

Women and girls are not simply victims, however. They are key actors who have vital knowledge of their community and environment. If girls do not have the ability to participate in decision making, access resources and opportunities that they need, or learn practical skills, half of the population will be unable to contribute adequately to climate change adaptation. Being on the front lines of climate change, girls have the experience and the opportunity to best identify solutions—but first they must be empowered with education and a voice in their communities. Only by supporting the human rights of rural girls will the global community benefit from their talents and ambitions.

Women and Youth Take on “Man’s Crop” Coffee in Uganda

Ahead of International Women’s Day on 8th March, Sam Viney, Communications and Advocacy Officer at Farm Africa, explores how access to land and inputs can include women and youth in Uganda’s coffee boom.

I’m in my twenties but whenever I go to Uganda it makes me feel old! The world’s second youngest country’s median age is 15, and 77% of the population is below 30.

Every day, hundreds of young Ugandans hit the job market. Many find employment, but often not.  

Unemployment in Uganda is rising and young people shoulder the burden. In 2015, one in three young Ugandans was unemployed. When young people find work it’s normally insecure, part-time or unpaid family work. Women are more likely to be unemployed than men.

Uganda’s young people are full of entrepreneurial spirit, and never fail to fill me with confidence in the country’s future. Providing 70% of the country’s employment opportunities and contributing more than half of all exports, agriculture is Uganda’s most obvious vehicle to unleash their potential.

Credit: Esther Ruth Mbabazi/Farm Africa

Opportunity is brewing

Uganda’s employment challenge is coupled with rising demand for their most lucrative export: coffee.

There is huge demand for the caffeinated treat, and Kanungu’s tropical climate, in south-western Uganda, provides the perfect conditions to grow it. This should bring opportunities.

Despite this huge potential, limited access to land and low profits stop youth and women from investing in coffee production.

With co-funding from the European Union, the international NGO  has launched a project in Kanungu that develops young people’s skills and links to markets, and helps them gain access to the land they need to become successful coffee entrepreneurs.

Credit: Esther Ruth Mbabazi/Farm Africa

Access to land

Like many young Ugandans, Gillian and Dan need more land. The couple has a one-acre coffee farm that they received from Dan’s father Murisa.

Their annual income of £266 “isn’t enough”. If they had more land they’d be able to provide their son, who suffers from life-threatening fits, with much needed medical care.

Dan’s parents could afford to give Gillian and Dan a portion of their 45-acre farm but Murisa isn’t keen on the idea.

In Uganda, land is seen a man’s asset, the eldest man in the family doesn’t like to cede control over land or agricultural decisions to women or younger men.

“Agriculture employs 93% of Kanungu’s residents. Land is in the hands of older men. Youth face hardship accessing land, young women doubly so.” Martin Atukwase, General Secretary of Kanungu Ugandan Young Farmers’ Association. “No land, no opportunity.”

Youth need access to and control over land to invest in coffee. Coffee plants take around five years to bear fruit so young farmers need to start planting early on in their careers to see economic returns later in life.

Farm Africa has helped set up the Kanungu chapter of the Ugandan Young Farmers’ Association. The young leaders were provided with advocacy training, and are calling for greater access to land for women and young people.

The young leaders have hit the ground running, working with TV and radio stations, and organising intergenerational meetings to change fathers’ minds about land.

Land agreements

Farm Africa’s staff in Kanungu are working with families to create agreement amongst family units about land access issues.

These conversations are sensitive. Land is a delicate subject. Uganda has seen a spate of deaths involving young men killing other family members over access to family land.

Many fathers recognise youth and women’s need for land but worry that equipping them with land will undermine their authority and lead to the sale of family land.

Farm Africa sensitively allays these fears by working with fathers and other household members to develop voluntary land use agreements.

The content of the agreements is decided upon by the family. In general, agreements look to provide young people and women with access to and control over what’s grown on a piece of land for a specific period of time. Agreements normally stipulate that the occupant cannot sell land.

These agreements provide young people and women with the opportunity to invest in their businesses and future. The process hopes to kickstart a journey that sees young people go from being job seekers to job creators.

Credit: Esther Ruth Mbabazi/Farm Africa

Improve quality

Kanungu’s coffees could be amongst the best in the world but poor farming practices and processing mean that farmers produce low quality coffee, relegating their produce to cheap instant coffee, and other sub-par, markets.

The project is training 4,800 people to grow and process quality coffee and gain access to more lucrative markets.

Many farmers are selling coffee for as little as 10p a kilogram, if they improved coffee quality they could be selling at £2 a kilogram locally in Kanungu and upto £4 a Kilogram in the international markets

In a context of shrinking farm sizes, providing people with the skills and resources necessary to maximise land use and produce quality coffee that fetches a good price is extremely important.

It also makes the land access ask easier: give skilled people the chance to enter a profitable market, unlocking profits that will benefit the whole family.

Credit: Esther Ruth Mbabazi/Farm Africa

Coffee, a man’s crop?

In Kanungu, coffee is seen as a man’s crop. Men sell the cash crop and pocket the earnings, while women do the majority of the agricultural work and see little, if any, of the profits.

Farm Africa plans to launch a new project in September 2019 to complement the existing work.  

Made possible by matched funding from the UK government for Farm Africa’s recently launched Coffee is Life appeal, the new project will provide women with the support they need to become actively involved in coffee cooperatives and earn a fair share of coffee production profits.

The project will help women move from providing menial labour harvesting coffee to assuming positions of responsibility actively involved in adding value to the coffee, marketing it and securing good prices from the international speciality coffee market.

Featured photo credit: Esther Ruth Mbabazi/Farm Africa

MAR82018
International Women’s Day

8th March 2018

Global

International Women’s Day ​​(March 8) is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating gender parity.​ ​International Women’s Day​ (IWD) has occurred for well over a century, with the first IWD run by the Suffragettes in 1911.​ Read more >>

#IWD2017 – 17 Programs Helping Women Feed the World

Welcome to our new series “Supporter Spotlight”, where we showcase the fantastic work our supporters are doing to further sustainable agriculture worldwide. To celebrate International Women’s Day, we take a look at the programs levelling the planting field for female farmers.

1. We Farm: How single parent Clara increased her income

Clara discovered that her cow had a mineral deficiency that was making her bones weak. Through the mobile peer-to-peer advice network We Farm, Clara was advised that she should feed the cow with feeds rich with calcium and phosphorus. Another farmer also sent Clara an SMS with advice on how to grow hydroponic fodder which could help to substitute minerals in her cow feed, at a cheaper cost. Not only did she solve her problem but also learned a new skill in the process. Read more. Continue reading

Yvette Ondachi: Helping Women Play A Pivotal Role in the Food Value Chain

Yvette Ondachi is the founder of Ojay Greene, a Kenyan agribusiness that connects rural farmers to urban markets. Ahead of International Women’s Day, she shares stories of the female farmers she works with, and offers her own advice to female entrepreneurs.

Sub Saharan Africa imports food worth $30billion annually, yet the continent has enough land to grow food that will feed itself and still have more to export to other parts of the world. Kenya is not exempt from this equation. The big question is why the mismatch?

The majority of the Kenyan population depends on agriculture for a living – 26 million people are smallholder farmers and close to 70% of these live below the poverty line – earning $700 annually or less. The underlying cause of these miserable statistics is that these smallholder farmers have an over-reliance on rain fed farming – this is despite the changing climate patterns. They find themselves unable to meet the rising demand for fruits and vegetables in urban areas brought about by increasing populations and a rapidly growing middle class.

Ojay Greene is an innovative agribusiness with a social mission: to increase the incomes of smallholder farmers. The enterprise does this by working with smallholder farmers to help them tap into the growing demand of fresh fruits and vegetables in urban markets. By interacting with farmers, Ojay Greene strives to change their behaviours from subsistence farming to commercial farming using an approach that involves tackling their immediate and potential risks; the main one being climate change.

So how do we do this? Ojay Greene uses a mobile platform to offer smallholder farmers advisory services, agronomic extension services, access to farm inputs and market linkage. Farmers get weekly instructions on their mobile phones enabling them to follow the exact steps when planting. This enables them to produce a standardized product, that complies with market specifications. In addition, they can ask questions through the platform when they are in doubt. They can also alert our team about any unusual pests or diseases they encounter during production. Ojay Greene sees to it that farmers are visited monthly by their agronomists to ensure that they get the technical support they require and that they are following the right steps to produce high quality and competitive products. These measures ensure that smallholder farmers have a consistent revenue stream.

As we celebrate International Women’s Day, I’d like to share with you a story about Mary, a female farmer who embodies a true picture of resilience. Mary lost her home and became internally displaced person during the post election violence that occurred in 2007. She was fortunate enough to lease a piece of land from the government to enable her cultivate crops to sell in the local market. Despite this opportunity, she had to contend with herdsmen from the neighbouring pastoral community who would let their cattle feed on her hard-earned crops. She would consider herself very fortunate if she managed to make $500 annually. Ojay Greene was introduced to Mary’s farmer group in September 2016. Mary grows leafy green vegetables – (both conventional and indigenous African varieties) which happen to be in very high demand in urban areas. By working with Mary, we have helped her access quality seed, harvest a bountiful crop and access a profitable urban market. If she continues with this trend she will be able to increase her annual income to US$ 1,000 by September 2017.

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From our work with smallholder farmers, we have observed that female farmers have immense potential to play a pivotal role in the food value chain in Kenya and Africa. This is because they tend to be more organized in regards to conforming to our model which requires smallholder farmers to work together as a farming community in groups. Our model fosters team work; farmers agree to plant on the same day, visit each others farms, give each other developmental feedback and have a sense of healthy competition amongst themselves. Most of the ones we’ve worked with are beginning to realize the benefits of working together. Together they have collective bargaining power that spurs them on to generate enough income to educate their children. This said, women need more access to financing – stronger links to market and continuous knowledge transfer to make them more productive.

As a female entrepreneur, my biggest barrier being the barrier to financing – I faced broken promises from potential financiers and investors, as well as delayed payments from clients. I observed that an underfinanced company fails to realize its potential and the growth is hampered. I have learnt that laser focus is a critical attribute when all else fails. I remember the initial reason that drove me to start Ojay Greene and realize that quitting is not an option. I lift myself up and encourage myself to hold on because the road to success is filled with setbacks and roadblocks, but those who endure to the end leave a legacy that surpasses their generation.

My advise to other female entrepreneurs: “Don’t wait to be validated. Follow your aspirations no matter what barriers come your way. Focus on what’s working and seek to replicate it. I look forward to seeing you at the top.”

Hearing Women Farmers Speak on #IWD2016

The World Economic Forum estimated last year, that a slowdown in the slow progress towards gender equality meant the gender gap wouldn’t close entirely until 2133. This year, the theme of International Women’s Day is “pledging for parity”, to ensure that this change happens sooner.

At Farming First, we are working to make sure the voices of women farmers are heard – from getting them onto speaker rosters at global events, to accompanying them to present at United Nations negotiations. We know that closing the gender gap in agriculture would have a remarkable impact on reducing world hunger. Check out our infographic “The Female Face of Farming” to find out how: Continue reading