A farmer from a women-run vegetable cooperative grows cabbages in Sierra Leone. Credit: FAO/Sebastian Liste

By Danielle Nierenberg and Emily Payne
BALTIMORE, Maryland / DENVER, Colorado, May 1 2023 (IPS)

Studies consistently show that women have lower rates of agricultural productivity compared to men in the region, but it’s not because they’re less efficient farmers.

Women in sub-Saharan Africa often lead food storage, handling, stocking, processing, and marketing in addition to other household tasks and childcare. Yet they severely lack the resources they need to produce food.

A 2019 United Nations policy brief reports that giving women equal access to agricultural inputs is critical to closing this gender gap in productivity while also raising crop production.

And last year, the 17th Tanzania Economic Update showed that bridging the gap could lift about 80,000 Tanzanians out of poverty every year and boost annual gross domestic product growth by 0.86 percent.

This makes a clear economic case for investing in women, but public policies frequently overlook gender-specific needs and equality issues. Instead, organizations across the region have been stepping up to help break down the barriers that have traditionally held sub-Saharan African women back.

The West and Central Africa Council for Agricultural Research and Development (CORAF), Africa’s largest sub-regional research organization, runs a database of gender-sensitive technologies, ones that are low-cost and labor-saving for women across the region.

It also developed a series of initiatives to provide training in seed production, distribution, storage, and planting techniques for women. These programs are specifically designed with women’s needs and preferences in mind, such as prioritizing drought resistance or early maturity in crops.

This is an important shift. While we’re seeing an increasing number of exciting technologies and innovations tackling the food systems’ biggest challenges, unless these technologies are gender-sensitive—meaning they address the unique needs and challenges faced by women farmers—they will not be effective.

But empowering women means more than just facilitating access to technologies. Women must also be supported to lead the discoveries, inventions, and research of the future.

The West Africa Agriculture Productivity Program (WAAPP), a sub-regional initiative launched by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) with the financial support of the World Bank and collaboration with CORAF, has specifically targeted initiatives for women farmers as well as women researchers.

Since 2008, 3 out of every 10 researchers trained under the WAAPP have been women.

And in just the past few years, more exciting networks are emerging to support women leading agriculture: In 2019, the African Women in Agribusiness Network launched to promote women’s leadership in African agribusiness. In 2020, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) launched the Women in Agribusiness Investment Network to help bridge the gender financing gap.

And in 2021, the African Women in Seed program was created to support women’s participation in the seed sector through training, mentorship, and networking opportunities for women seed entrepreneurs.

Empowering women in the food system is not simply a matter of social justice and equality; sub-Saharan Africa cannot afford to leave women behind.

Nearly a third of the population in sub-Saharan Africa is undernourished. Meanwhile, it’s one of the fastest-growing populations in the world, expected to double by 2050 and dramatically increase demand.

Women are the backbone of communities and the food system at large in sub-Saharan Africa, and the region’s future economic development and environmental sustainability depend on them. While women are now playing a more active role in the food system, we need more women in leadership at all levels.

Rwanda’s female-led parliament, one of the highest proportions of women parliamentarians in the world, has been instrumental in not only advancing women’s rights but promoting economic development and improving governance. We need more of this.

With the resources, recognition, and support they need and deserve, women will lead the region to a more equitable, sustainable, and resilient future.

Sub-Saharan Africa can achieve the transformation it so critically needs, but only if we support women in the food system now.

Danielle Nierenberg is President, Food Tank; Emily Payne is Food Tank researcher.

IPS UN Bureau

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Women farmers clearing farmland in Northern Bangladesh. Credit: Naimul Haq/IPS

By Danielle Nierenberg and Emily Payne
NEW ORLEANS, United States, Jul 10 2018 (IPS)

According to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, women make up about 43 percent of the agricultural labor force worldwide, and in some countries they make up 80 percent of all farmers. In addition to tending crops, most women—particularly in the Global South—are also responsible for seed saving, animal husbandry, grain processing, and other tasks related to growing food. This is in addition to cooking, cleaning, and taking care of sick elders and children.

It’s women farmers who produce the food that families eat. While male farmers often focus on growing commodity crops like maize, rice, and soybeans, women raise the fruits, vegetables, and small livestock that nourish families each day.

But if women had the same access to resources as men, they could raise their current yields by 20 to 30 percent—this would lift as many as 150 million people out of hunger. So when considering the global food system crisis, women should be at the top of mind.If women had the same access to resources as men, they could raise their current yields by 20 to 30 percent—this would lift as many as 150 million people out of hunger. So when considering the global food system crisis, women should be at the top of mind

Nourished Planet, a new book put forth by the Barilla Center for Food & Nutrition, highlights stories of success through women’s efforts in agriculture throughout the world. Examples range from female PhD students from Jamaica developing workshops for small farmers on climate-adaptive irrigation strategies to women dairy farmers in Ghana starting a co-op to pay for their children’s healthcare and education.

The book goes on to highlight that, across the globe, women often have little agency over their own lives. They often lack the same access to resources—such as land, banking and financial services, education, and extension services—as male farmers. And in many countries, women aren’t allowed to own land or even inherit their land.

As farmers across the globe are aging, women need to be able to take their rightful role as leader of their land, farm, and family. The average age of the American farmer is 57 years old; in Africa, the average farmer is 60. When their husbands die, we need to ensure that the women of these households are able to maintain the land they have grown, cultivated, and lived on for often many generations.

Traditional power structures in the food system commonly ignore or undervalue the vital roles women play. Women need to be recognized for their part in feeding the world today, as well as empowered to grow their contributions into the future.

Credit: IPS

 

Across the globe, women are taking matters into their own hands by forming cooperatives and non-governmental organizations and innovating their way to a sustainable future.

The Women in Agriculture program in Nigeria is connecting women to vital extension services, and the Women Advancing Agriculture Initiative advocates for gender equality and access to information for women in Ghana. In America, the Women in Food & Ag Network is striving to create a global network to provide opportunities for education on economics and environment that promote a holistic view of agriculture.

Women farmers are letting governments, policymakers, and their own husbands, brothers, fathers, and sons know that we ignore women in the food system at our own peril.

A more economically viable, environmentally sustainable, and socially just food and agriculture system around the globe is within our reach. But it is an essential for farmers, eaters, businesses, policymakers, academics, funders, and anyone interested in contributing to a food system to value and support women to continue to grow our food, nourish our bodies and planet, and innovate to food system change.

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Credit: Bigstock

By Danielle Nierenberg and Emily Payne
NEW ORLEANS, United States, May 29 2018 (IPS)

Many factors contribute to the cost of a tomato. For example, what inputs were used (water, soil, fertilizer, pesticides, as well as machinery and/or labor) to grow it? What kind of energy and materials were used to process and package it? Or how much did transportation cost to get it to the shelf?

But that price doesn’t always reflect how the plant was grown—overuse and misuse of antibiotics, water pollution from pesticide runoff, or whether or not farm workers harvesting the tomatoes were paid a fair wage. It turns out cheap food often comes with an enormously expensive cost to human and planetary health.

Danielle Nierenberg

Agricultural production, from clearing forests to producing fertilizer to packaging foods, contributes 43 to 57 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions (GHG). And almost 40 percent of all food that is produced is lost or wasted. As that food decomposes in landfills, it releases methane, which is 25-times more potent of a GHG than carbon dioxide—in fact, landfills are the third-largest source of human-related methane emissions in the U.S.

Often, today’s food systems are incentivized to favor low-cost, processed foods. Corporations and large-scale producers are often subsidized to grow select staple crops, which are typically grown in monocultures using practices that strip soils of nutrients. And it’s becoming increasingly clear that poor diets have produced a global public health crisis.

Six of the top eleven risk factors driving disease worldwide are diet-related, and the World Health Organization estimates the global direct costs of diabetes to be more than US$827 billion per year.

To feed 10 billion people by 2050, we need to start thinking of food production, health care, and climate change as interconnected. As the world’s population grows, so does the need for more resilient food and agricultural systems that address human need while minimizing environmental damage and further biodiversity loss.

Emily Payne

In a recent report by The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity for Agriculture & Food (TEEBAgriFood), a new framework was developed to look at all the impacts of the value chain, from farm to fork to disposal. The framework hopes to give policymakers, researchers, and citizens more reliable information on the real and unaccounted for costs of our whole food system—not just parts of it.

This type of systems thinking supports a shift away from measuring the success of food production by metrics like yield per hectare, which fails to provide a complete picture of the true, often invisible costs of the entire system.

Changemakers across the globe are rising to this challenge and bringing sustainable and regenerative practices into the farming of the future. Recognizing that farming is in a period of transition, they are helping build a system that increases food production to meet a growing population while reducing harm on the environment and feeding those in need.

It’s now easier than ever to access resources and learn how our everyday decisions impact not just ourselves, but our environment and public health. The Barilla Center for Food & Nutrition developing the Double Pyramid to help people make food choices which are both healthy for people and sustainable for the planet. And recognizing carbon footprints and water footprints allow individuals to better understand how deeply intertwined the food system and climate change are.

No one person or organization will be able to fix this food system. Businesses, policymakers, farmers, and, of course, eaters have a responsibility to help protect natural resources, improve social equity, and create a more sustainable food system through more informed decisions and responsible consumption.

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