Equalizing women in agri-food systems would reduce hunger, stimulate the economy and help fight climate change

Addressing gender inequality in agri-food systems and changing the role of women in the sector reduces hunger, stimulates the economy and strengthens resilience to crises such as climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic, a new report reveals of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

The document The situation of women in agri-food systemsthe first of its kind since 2010, is not limited to agriculture, but offers a comprehensive picture of the situation of women working in agri-food systems, ranging from production to distribution and consumption.

“Women work as producers, entrepreneurs, sellers, workers and also as consumers. So, they participate in all the dimensions that are part of the agri-food systems”, declares the director of the Department of Inclusive Rural Transformation and Gender Equality of the FAO, Benjamin Davis.

The Organization stresses that agri-food systems are a important source of work globally: 36% of working women are employed in the sector, a figure that reaches 38% in the case of men.

Worst working conditions

When asked why there is talk of inequality in the sector, given such an even figure, the director explains that women’s work is underestimated and their working conditions tend to be worse than those of men.

“In general, women have a more informal job, it is more precarious, part-time, low-skilled and more laborious, and ultimately worse paid. Another element of inequality is the greater burden as unpaid carers and domestic work, which globally is three times higher for women, that is where the inequality is”.

Specifically, the report highlights that female wage earners in agriculture earn 82 cents for every dollar men receive. The reason is not only linked to occupational segregation and the aforementioned precarious working conditions; “Another reason is discrimination that women face, they are simply paid less for the same work. And that is very common in many contexts”, adds Benjamin Davis.

Women also have less access to land ownership, credit, training and new technologies. Together with discrimination, these inequalities give rise to a 24% gender gap in productivity between women and men farmers for farms of the same size.

Socioeconomic benefits

Benjamin Davis explains that addressing gender inequalities in agri-food systems would have many consequences in the daily life of families and communities, and that women would have a leading role in collective life.

“We also made a calculation in economic terms that if the gender gap in agricultural productivity were closed and if the existing wage gap in agri-food systems were eliminated, world gross domestic product would rise by 1%. And with it, global food insecurity would be reduced around 2 percentage points and the number of people with food insecurity would be reduced by 45 million, and that is only a conservative calculation, in the sense that its long-term impact is not calculated”, adds the director.

In turn, the benefits of projects that empower women are greater than those that merely take gender issues into account. The authors explain that if half of the small producers counted measures focused on the women empowermentthere would be a significant increase in the income of another 58 million people and the resilience of another 235 million.

Economic crises and climate change

The report also notes that when economies contract, women’s jobs are the first to disappear. Globally, 22% of women in off-farm segments of agri-food systems lost their jobs in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, compared to 2% of men.

During the pandemic, the food insecurity of women, who also had to assume more care responsibilities, which meant that girls missed more classes than boys.

Likewise, the report indicates that women are more vulnerable to climatic disturbances and natural disasters, because “they have more limited resources and assets that reduce their adaptive capacity and resilience.”

Situation in Latin America

Regarding the situation in Latin America, Benjamín Davis points out that the gender gap is more important in the process of transforming agricultural production into consumer products due to the level of development of the region and the number of jobs in the secondary sectors. and tertiary.

“In the Latin American continent, the situation is quite similar, I would say, to the scenario that I have described in global terms, in the sense that there is a lot of inequality in employment conditions for women in Latin America, again in terms of informality. and the precarious nature, and being less but paid. The difference would be that, in Latin American countries, agriculture plays a lesser role in the economies, so there are fewer women, in percentage terms, who are working in the agricultural sector”.

However, the director has denounced the situation of the indigenous population on the continent, and specifically of indigenous women: “they suffer double discrimination, for being indigenous and for being women. And this has very important implications for their lives and their families.”

recommendations

The report concludes that while national policy frameworks have become more gender-sensitive in the past decade, gender inequality in agrifood systems persists, in part because discriminatory policies, institutions and social norms continue to limiting equal opportunities and rights to resources.

To end gender inequality, we need fill gaps related to access to assets, technology and resources. The study shows that interventions to improve women’s productivity are successful when they address the burdens of unpaid care and domestic work, provide education and training, and facilitate land ownership.

In this sense, Benjamin Davis highlights the importance of adopting policies focused on change social norms that tend to restrict the possibility of women to work in the labor market. “It is also very important to improve women’s rights to ownership and secure tenure of agricultural land, which has a very positive influence on empowerment, investment, natural resource management and access to services and institutions and also helps in terms of increasing their bargaining power.

The director made reference to how access to childcare also has a notable positive effect on the employment of mothers, while social protection programs have been shown to increase women’s employment and resilience.

“And lastly, it is very important to make a greater effort to have statistical information disaggregated by gender and to be able to measure empowerment in its multiple dimensions, and improve the design and effectiveness of gender equality and empowerment programs and policies,” added Davis.

Political will

In a last message to the States in Latin America, he declared that in order to close the gender gap, political will is needed. “It would be important go from words to deeds. There has been an increase in the mention of inclusion, of the gender issue in many policies, many documents, etc. But relatively few specific programs and policies aimed at addressing these inequalities.

The report concludes that reducing gender inequalities in livelihoods, improving access to resources and building resilience are critical pathways towards gender equality, women’s empowerment and stronger agri-food systems. fair and sustainable.

“If we address gender inequalities in agri-food systems and empower women, the world will take a leap forward in achieving the goals of ending poverty and create a world without hunger”, says the director-general of the FAO, QU Dongyu, in the document.

“Women have always worked in agrifood systems. It is time we make agri-food systems work for women,” she stated.