BRIDGING THE GENDER GAP

Akila Wijerathna emphasises the need to empower female smallholder farmers

Smallholder farmers provide over 80 percent of the food consumed in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, and contribute significantly to poverty reduction and food security. But they face a persistent problem of underproduction, and are often unable to produce sufficient food to feed their families as well as earn a decent income.

Such small-time producers predominantly farm rain fed crops, which are cultivated using traditional practices. They often take land on lease; and at harvest time, they offer a portion of their produce as rent or pay part of the sales proceeds to landowners.

Most smallholder farms are fragmented and disorganised. These farmers sell their produce almost immediately due to a lack of post-harvest processes, storage units and marketing systems. The lack of market access also drives down prices.

Women smallholder farmers, who account for a large percentage of the overall workforce, face even more obstacles. Their contribution to agricultural production is not taken into consideration and they have to play a dual role as caretakers of their families alongside burdensome responsibilities on farms.

Such women comprise nearly half the agriculture labour force in developing nations and face multiple constraints compared
to their male counterparts. These include unpaid farm work; the burden of care and reproductive roles; and being deprived of landownership, access to markets, key assets and inputs. Women are also frequently excluded from decision making.

According to the FAO, women comprise an average 43 percent of the agriculture labour force in developing countries, and almost 50 percent in East Asia, Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.

If women farmers had equal access to the same resources such as training, financing and property rights as their male counterparts, they could increa-se their crop yields by 20-30 percent, support their house-holds and sustain livelihoods.

When women earn their own wages, they typically reinvest 90 percent of the earnings in their families and communities.

Women (at 56% of the labour force in plantation agriculture) form the largest group of workers in Sri Lanka and constitute a sizeable 42 percent of the labour force.

Almost 68 percent of them in the agriculture industry work in plantations and over 70 percent of rural women are in subsistence production. Women in tea plantations play a significant role in rural development, poverty reduction and food security.

The tea industry is the main source of income and export revenue for emerging economies, and it’s a labour-intensive sector. A substantial portion of the world’s tea is grown by smallholders.

However, they have not been equal beneficiaries in sustainability because companies that own factories where tea is processed and the plantations don’t have the capacity, interest or resources to set up training programmes in the communities to uplift the livelihoods of smallholder farmers.

Food, trade, health and climate are interdependent, and the pandemic has revealed the fragility of these linkages. Globally, smallholder farmers face constraints such as unfavourable climatic conditions, low rainfall, high temperatures and poor soil quality.

Many of them are food insecure and struggle to earn a living or feed their families. In most agriculture-based economies, smallholder farms also face constraints such as access to inputs, technology, credit and organised markets.

Today, the COVID-19 pandemic is having a disproportionate impact on their livelihoods and wellbeing.

The benefits of gender equality are clear. At the farm level, we need to work with community leaders to ensure that training and education are equally accessible to women. This process must involve both women and men since viable long-term change can occur only if men recognise the need for inclusivity.

It is vital to align agricultural policy with SDG 5 to ensure gender equality, and empowerment of women and girls; and SDG 2 to end hunger, achieve food security and ensure improved nutrition, as well as promote sustainable agriculture.

Empowering women in agriculture is very important in terms of improving climate change adaptation, food and nutrition security, and rural development.

Women should also be employed in agricultural leadership positions. They must be encouraged to take part in village groups too, and be involved in decision making with regard to income and production.

For this to happen, the idea of women as agricultural leaders needs to be recognised at both community and national levels. For such an enabling environment, women must have access to extension services and technical training including agricultural knowledge.

Microfinance programmes for women should be implemented with financial literacy and business development training – and there should be support programmes to empower women in decision making.