المنتدى العالمي المعني بالأمن الغذائي والتغذية

Question 1: What are the main challenges rural women and girls are facing today?

The recognition of women’s work has been a key concern of feminist politics and scholarship. Agriculture is one such sector where the blurred boundary between productive and reproductive work can lead to the extraction of unpaid and underpaid labour on a large scale. Flagship surveys continue to undercount women’s contribution to the economy and this is one of the great challenges faced by women these days.

Secondly, In addition to their roles as workers, women are more likely to be caregivers within their households. As a result, they have competing claims on their time which influences the choices they make with respect to time allocation, impacts their productivity as well as the quality of the care they provide, and overburdens them.

Women have unequal access to resources and opportunities in agriculture, especially in the developing world. Research and evidence show that women are disadvantaged in terms of asset possession, which includes the highly unequal access to land, and lack access to technologies, agricultural innovations, government services. They are also disadvantaged when using tools and equipment because even though they are meant to be gender neutral they are more suitable for men

Question 2: Are we using the right approaches and policies to close the gender gap?

Donor efforts to empower women often start with the reallocation of economic resources between men and women. It is undeniable that such programs have led to economic freedom for women, and to better economies. But does having more economic resources necessarily lead to empowerment of women? This gender gap cannot be closed unless women empowerment is achieved.

Secondly, there are many policy measures which aim to provide women with opportunities and conducive environments outside the home, such as work laws, and equal transport facilities, data shows that work must first be done to give back women their basic right to “choose.”

Question 3: How can we best achieve gender transformative impacts?

One of the policy recommendations given by the FAO State of Food and Agriculture Report 2011 to close this ‘gender gap’ is by improving the collection and quality of the data to allow for gender differences and implications to be highlighted for more gender-aware agricultural policy.

To tackle the issue at grass root level, policy making needs to focus on changing the mindsets of both men and women. This change can come only through working to change internalized mindsets of “appropriate” gender roles because these very people will go on to become the policy makers, the bosses and the vehicles to convene women’s empowerment. In societies where the power of religion is so strong that people use it to marginalize women, same religious teachings must be used by educated masses to give women their due rights and respect.

Agricultural policies and programs are often framed for the benefit of male farmers. Women agricultural workers, even when they are recognized as farmers, are peripheral to mainstream agricultural policies, despite the fact that they increasingly provide a large part of the low-paid labour, which sustains many agricultural activities. Agricultural and other policies must work for the benefit of women.