The work of rural women is often invisible. Their contributions to the households – in terms of both housework and raising children as well as their work in agriculture and other economic sectors – are immense, but often go unnoticed. Thankfully, that is starting to change. A revolution is taking place – a “quiet revolution,” as UN Women call it – and International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) is taking part in it.

It takes the form of a simple Agroecological Logbook. Each of the Agroecological Logbook page has four columns, in which women record the various products they have sold, given away, exchanged or consumed, thereby calculating their value. At the end of the week or the month, they can see and prove the value of their contribution to the household budget.

Knowing that what they do has value gives these women greater autonomy and decision-making power – in several ways. The use of the Agroecological Logbooks often strengthens the bonds between them, creating a group identity. The women who use this tool hold regular meetings in which they share their experiences, successes, questions and challenges related to keeping the logbooks. They also share their personal lives with each other, finding emotional and even, sometimes, financial support within these groups.

Once their contributions were finally made tangible, many women began to experience positive changes in their relationships with their husbands and relatives, the need to include their families in the ongoing discussions on feminism in agroecology has been brought up.  

IFAD’s contribution to this “quiet revolution” started in November 2018, when representatives of Semear International, an organization born of the partnership between IFAD and the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), first heard about how this tool was empowering rural women in Brazil’s southern states. From there, they worked with gender and social inclusion experts to devise a way to introduce it into IFAD-funded projects and to promote a better and fairer division of labor both in the field and at home.