Celebration of World Food Day
Rome, Italy, 16 October 1998
Mr Under-Secretary of State,
Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
As we mark today the 50th anniversary
of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, I would
have wished to announce that we had finally succeeded in
eradicating chronic hunger and malnutrition from this
planet. That would indeed have been a noble and
appropriate cause for celebration at the end of this
millennium.
Instead, World Food Day 1998 serves to
remind us of the tragic fact that more than 800 million
people still do not enjoy the most basic of human rights,
the right to food, and that urgent and drastic measures
must be taken on several fronts, if we are to achieve the
World Food Summit objective of at least halving the
number of hungry people by the year 2015. The short- and
long-term impacts of this morally unacceptable situation
are devastating in both human and economic
terms.
On this World Food Day, I would like
to pay tribute to a large group of invisible heroines
&endash; namely the women who "feed the world" - by
echoing the world leaders from 186 countries at the World
Food Summit, who declared: "We acknowledge the
fundamental contribution to food security by women,
particularly in rural areas of developing countries, and
the need to ensure equality between women and
men".
This recognition of the role of women
in ensuring food security was translated into concrete
commitments in the Plan of Action adopted at the Summit,
specifically calling for the promotion of women's full
and equal participation in the economy, and providing
women with secure and equal access to and control over
productive resources including credit, land and
water.
Why is this important? I am personally
convinced that the goal of food security for all cannot
be reached unless the voice of the silent majority of
humanity is heard. The enormous contribution made by
women in agriculture, forestry and fisheries, and thereby
in achieving household and national food security, must
be recognized and valued. We must all make the effort to
enhance our understanding of and responses to the daily
challenges women face in accomplishing their tasks as
food producers and providers.
Throughout history, the role of women
in feeding the world has been celebrated by poets and
artists. The generous and fertile land is often
represented by a woman holding products of the land in
abundance in her hands - hence the old adage "Mother
Earth".
At the end of this millenium, this
image is more real than ever, especially in the
developing world, where women's labour ensures a large
share of food production for household consumption and
food processing activities and marketing of food
products. In many of these countries, we are actually
witnessing a trend towards the feminization of the
agricultural sector - a phenomenon mainly due to the
rural-urban migration of men in search of better-paid
economic opportunities. Since this is most evident in
low-income food-deficit countries, where most of the
world's food insecure live, the feminization of
agriculture appears to go hand in hand with a
feminization of poverty.
Rural women's strategies for coping
during the severe droughts and ensuing famines of the
1970s and 1980s in Africa are testimonials of their
resilience and ingenuity in the face of crisis. Many
families survived thanks to the secondary food crops
produced by women. In addition, their knowledge of
medicinal plants helps to secure the health of their
families when imported medicines are too expensive or are
scarce due to economic austerity measures.
This invaluable contribution won wider
recognition when the Convention on Biological Diversity,
adopted at Rio de Janeiro in 1992, acknowledged and
stressed the role of local communities, especially women,
in the conservation and sustainable use of biological
diversity. In this domain, FAO is working to document the
wealth of knowledge rural women possess about the
biological diversity of their immediate environment,
particularly agro-biodiversity. Indeed, women farmers are
particularly keen to maintain crop diversity and wild
plant species, since they are often the ones to use these
genetic resources to develop new varieties according to
changing needs and preferences. In Africa, women
cultivate as many as 120 different plants in the ground
left alongside the cash crops managed by men. This
ingenious diversification of production helps to ensure
better nutrition and food security for their
families.
Women's home gardens are often models
of sustainable land use. They also perform many food
processing activities and are actively involved in the
trade of food products. Their marketing activities
translate directly into improved family nutrition. Women
are nearly universally responsible for food preparation
for their families and, through this activity, are often
the first to suffer from environmental degradation: when
trees and shrubs are felled, it is the women who have to
walk farther and farther from their homes to find the
fuelwood needed to maintain their families.
Last year, on the occasion of World
Food Day, I stressed the importance of increasing
investment by the private sector in food security by
supporting the efforts of millions of small farmers,
traders, village artisans and entrepreneurs. I
particularly mentioned the fact that the majority of
those in need of investment support are rural women and
those who earn less than the equivalent of US $200
per year.
There are countless encouraging
examples of what women can achieve when given access to
financing, though limited in scale. They have proven to
be credit-worthy and reliable and return rates from their
activities of food processing and marketing are usually
very high. Their traditional saving schemes can be turned
into modernized financial services, using local savings
and deposits to ensure sustainable financial
intermediation and reduce dependence on external
resources.
Despite the pivotal role carried out
by women in the continuous struggle to ensure food
security, their contribution to food production,
processing and marketing is simply not accounted for in
national statistics, or in agricultural censuses. The
widespread ignorance of the actual division of labour and
respective responsibilities and contributions of men and
women in the agricultural sector hampers the achievement
of optimal agricultural productivity. Most countries
still adopt a gender-blind approach to agricultural
planning and policy-making.
Although many developing countries
have legally affirmed women's basic right to own land,
they rarely exercise actual control of the land. The most
problematic aspect of women's customary land rights is
the lack of security, as secure land rights are important
for access to credit, membership of rural organizations,
extension assistance, technology and
information.
An FAO survey showed that women
farmers receive on average only 5 percent of all
agricultural extension services worldwide and that only
some 15 percent of the world's extension agents are
women. Indeed, these services often target cash crop
production and large scale farming, dominated by men,
while subsistence farming by smallholders, dominated by
women, tends to be overlooked or regarded as of secondary
importance.
Thus, there is a prevailing gender
inequity in access to and benefits from new agricultural
technology. Indeed, we have seen that in situations where
new technology is introduced without regard to its
gender-differentiated impact, the effects on women's
workloads or income-generating activities may in fact be
negative.
Since its early days, FAO has
acknowledged and consistently worked with rural women as
natural partners in activities related to nutrition and
household food security. Over the past 53 years, the
admiration and institutional understanding of FAO for the
multiple roles rural women play throughout the entire
food chain has grown. In its current normative
activities, FAO addresses the concerns of rural women in
their various productive roles in farming, forestry and
fishing.
One of the main lessons that can be
drawn from FAO's experience is that, when women are given
the opportunities and access to resources and services,
they become dynamic partners in the development process.
However, too often, women's participation is limited to
their continued provision of free labour instead of
playing an active role in identifying priorities and
designing solutions that directly affect their
livelihoods.
As part of the follow-up to the Word
Food Summit, and as a supplement to its Regular Programme
activities, FAO is implementing a Special Programme for
Food Security which is now operational in 37 low-income
food-deficit countries and under formulation in 35 other
countries. The Programme's guidelines foresee the use of
analysis of constraints to food security, with special
attention given to the analysis of socio-economic
constraints, by gender and by specific groups, in
particular with regard to access to technology, land,
input, storage, marketing, processing and credit
facilities.
The importance of women in overcoming
poverty and hunger will be brought to worldwide attention
in this year's TeleFood event, which will take place from
today until the 18th of October. Television and radio
programmes and broadcasts of related events will span the
globe with images and information, highlighting women's
contributions to the fight against poverty and hunger,
and urging solidarity to achieve the goal of Food For
All.
To win the war against hunger and
malnutrition, a revolution in people's thinking,
attitudes and behaviour is required. We must commit
ourselves to conceptualizing and implementing development
policies and programmes that are far more
gender-responsive than has been the case hitherto. The
question is not whether this is possible, because we know
that it is, but rather when will we have the collective
political will to invest in both women and men as equal
partners in development?
On this World Food Day, let us take
the opportunity to thank all the women who contribute to
universal food security and help "feed the
world".
