Reema Nanavaty, Director of the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), discusses the ways women can be better empowered in agriculture.
Women are the backbone of marginal farmer households in India. They work hard in the field, prepare meals, raise children, tend to animals and maintain the household. Given their intrinsic tendency to put family first, women are also the most affected during crises. Yet, these women are not often recognised formally as farmers. Continue reading
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.
This is the final post of Farming First’s #FillTheGap campaign to highlight the gender gap facing rural women working in agriculture.
Malidadi Chilongo may only be 27 but she is already a small-scale farmer, a mother-of-four, and her husband’s second wife.
She met her husband when she was 15, fell in love, and married. She has a good relationship with her husband’s first wife, who has five children.
“I was nervous at first to come here but it has been fine,” she said. “We get along well. We help each other out – I care for her children and she cares for mine if we need to do other things.”
This is the ninth post of Farming First’s #FillTheGap campaign to highlight the gender gap facing rural women working in agriculture.
Smallholders in Africa, more than anywhere else in the world, are at the mercy of a changing climate and environmental conditions, which can bring extreme weather and disease.
Only last year this harsh life-lesson was brought home dramatically to Ethel Khundi, 36, when her entire drove of pigs was killed by an outbreak of swine flu that wiped out hundreds of animals in the locality.
“Nearly everyone in the village lost their animals. It was a major setback,” she said.
This is the eighth post of Farming First’s #FillTheGap campaign to highlight the gender gap facing rural women working in agriculture.
For smallholder subsistence farmers, one of the greatest barriers to developing their business is a lack of available credit for what is often written off as too risky an investment. For female smallholders, the prejudices are greater still.
Yet bridging this risk-averse preconception can have a transformative effect, not only for the women it affects but for her family and community as well.
This is the seventh post of Farming First’s #FillTheGap campaign to highlight the gender gap facing rural women working in agriculture.
When Beatrice Gichuru’s husband passed away around three years ago, she lost not only her partner but her also provider and guardian. Like many Kenyan women, Beatrice had relied upon her husband to provide the land she farmed.
But in becoming a self-sufficient widow, Beatrice overcame the tragedy as well as the gender gap that means only one per cent of Kenyan women own land and access less than 10 per cent of available credit.