She Feeds the World: Women play a key role in food security and resilience
5 June 2018, Ottawa, ON - In recognition of World Environment Day, FAO North America and CARE Canada co-hosted "She Feeds the World," a high-level public event that brought together practitioners and policy-makers to discuss the role of women in agriculture in the face of climate change, among other challenges.
By way of exploring best practices and approaches for ensuring that the poorest women and girls share in the benefits generated by their contributions to agricultural growth and resilience to climate change, while enjoying the realization of their human rights, She Feeds the World discussed challenges and best practices of women empowerment in agriculture.
Mrs. Jacquelyn Wright, CARE Canada's Vice-President for Partnerships for Global Change, welcomed participants, emphasizing the need to build just and sustainable food systems, through "right interventions, at the right time" to shift gender dynamics, and by "empowering women farmers and working with them to tackle gender inequality, in their own midst and around the world".
Jacquelyn welcomed Canada's Feminist International Assistance Policy, which provides a powerful vision for how Canada will tackle gender challenges and invited participants to explore ways in which women scale farmers can be allies in that pursuit.
Following Jacquelyn's welcome message, Mrs. Celina Caesar-Chavannes, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Development provided remarks on behalf of the Government of Canada. She started by reminding participants the crucial role women play in agriculture, pulling out the large amount of available evidence: women are responsible for 85-90% of the time spent on food preparation around the world (WFP), and make up about 43% of the agricultural labor force world-wide, and about 50% in Sub-Saharan Africa (FAO, 2011). Moreover, 79% of economically active women in least developed countries report agriculture as their primary source of livelihood (FarmingFirst & FAO, 2013).
Mrs. Ceasar-Chavannes highlighted the interconnectivity between agriculture and climate change and explained how climate change affects women farmers most, although they contribute the least to the problem. Linking this evidence to the FIAP, she then briefly presented the ambitious Canadian Feminist International Assistance Policy (FIAP), which provides a strong vision for supporting women small-scale farmers, and ensuring their full participation in finding solutions.
She closed her remarks by acknowledging that the demand for food is skyrocketing and solutions needed to make sure no one is left behind.
Mr. Vimlendra Sharan (Director of FAO North America) built on Mrs. Caesar-Chavannes' remarks by emphasizing on despite all efforts, the number of hungry people around the world is climbing, having risen from 777 million in 2015 to 815 million in 2016. He echoed Mrs. Ceasar-Chavannes' call for "leaving no one behind" by pointing out that "global hunger could be reduced by 17% and 150M people lifted out of poverty if we close the gender gap and inequality that result in women producing less than their male counterparts". To bridge this gap, he strongly recommended, "women (and especially women farmers) cannot be in the passenger seat, they need to be the driver".
The world has committed to end hunger by 2030, and Mr. Sharan affirmed, and "the only way we can achieve this is by putting women and girls at the centre of our international support and assistance"; "women can't just be a chapter in a report, they need to be the whole story" he said. He also recognized that the most efficient way to put "women at centre" of the food systems is through changing gender roles via conscious social action, which is key to tackling food insecurity and extreme poverty.
Following Mr. Sharan's remarks, an armchair discussion explored perspectives from the research community (IDRC), civil society (CARE International), multilateral agencies (FAO) and farmer organizations (National Farmers' Union) on women in agriculture. Jennifer Muldoon (Global Lead - Environment & Natural Resources Management, CUSO International), co-chair of the Canadian Coalition on Climate Change and Development (C4D) moderated the armchair discussion. From the research perspective, Dr. Renaud DePlaen (Program Leader for Agriculture and Food Security, IDRC) highlighted that there is no lack of evidence when it comes to the role of women in agriculture, and to the barriers they confront in this sector. From his perspective, "ensuring gender equality in food systems and global agriculture production goes beyond just being more efficient, it is the right thing to do". To him, the research gap on empowering women in agriculture could framed as follows: "how can we change transform the food system so it can contribute to women's empowerment?" His answer: This can only be achieved if women and girls are seen and considered agents of change, effectively involved in solutions. To conclude, Mr. DePlaen underlined that "systems are a key platform to transform gender and power relations".
Juan Echanove (Senior Director for Food Security & Climate Change, CARE USA), echoed Dr. De Plaen by affirming that "tackling gender inequalities in agricultural systems requires approaches that tackle power dynamics". He then reminded that "these power imbalances create and/or exacerbate the three most important barriers women farmers face when they start to profit from their work, namely access and rights to land, mobility to produce and own their production, and gender based violence". To tackle these challenges, Mr. Echanove affirmed, "we need to tap the voices of women and their ability to take more leadership".
Katie Ward (Women's President, National Farmers' Union), pointed out that women and young farmers, whether in Canada or in Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia or Latin America, experience the same barriers, albeit at a difference scale. "There are many stories of women farmers being challenged by customers to take a lower price for their produce, while on the same market male farmers are not being asked the same". "Canadian women farmers don't have the same level of access to agricultural finance, land, equipment, which end up cornering them in crops that require less land, low equipment and low size loans (such as vegetable crop production or small ruminant", she said. Mrs. Ward then invited Global Affairs to engage more with Agriculture Canada to learn more on the real experiences of Canadian women farmers to not only guide the FIAP, but also share best overseas practices with Agriculture Canada.
Thomas Pesek (Senior Liaison Officer, FAO North America), underlined the crucial role of policy makers in finding sustainable and equitable solutions to the gender gap in agriculture. He shared that FAO supports the modernization of food systems governance at global, regional, national and local levels. He then shared a joint initiative (FAO, WFP, UN Women, IFAD), in seven countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America to support building food systems that empower women in agriculture.
After a brief question and answer period between audience members and the armchair discussants, Catherine Abreu (Executive Director of Climate Action Network / Réseau-Action Climat (CAN-RAC)), gave closing remarks and a call to action. She reminded the audience that "Women are not just victims of climate change and food insecurity and recipients of aid, but we must remember, they are powerful agents of change". She called on participants and the Government of Canada to action on the below elements:
- The Government of Canada must place women small-scale food producers at the centre of its international assistance and climate action strategies;
- This requires recognizing their contributions to gender equality, health and nutrition, environment and climate action, governance and accountability (i.e. FIAP Action Areas 1, 2, 3, 4, 5), and by ensuring climate action is mainstreamed in international assistance policy and vice versa;
- International Development organizations must ensure full and inclusive participation of women and youth in the design, implementation and evaluation of agricultural development initiatives to ensure "women and girls" occupy the driving seat they deserve to express they "power of change".
This writeup was prepared by Care Canada. Read more about FAO's work on Gender.