According to the publication “The situation of women in agrifood systems”, women make up 36% of workers in the agrifood system in Latin America and the Caribbean. The proportion of women in the agricultural labor force is higher or increasing relative to that of men in rural areas with high and predominantly male emigration.
April 13, 2023– Rome, Italy / Santiago de Chile. Addressing gender inequalities in agri-food systems and empowering women reduces hunger, stimulates the economy and builds resilience to crises such as climate change and the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, a new study reveals. Report of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).
The report on 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.
The report highlights that, globally, the role of women tends to be marginalized and their working conditions are often worse than those of men in irregular, informal, part-time, low-skilled or intensive jobs. of manpower. Similarly, women who work as wage earners in agriculture earn 82 cents for every dollar that men receive.
“By addressing endemic gender inequalities in agri-food systems and empowering women, the world will take a leap forward in achieving the goals of ending poverty and creating a world without hunger,” says QU Dongyu, CEO of FAO, in the foreword of the report.
The study explains that closing the gender gap in agricultural productivity and the wage gap in agricultural employment would increase global gross domestic product by almost USD 1 billion and reduce the number of food insecure people by 45 million.
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 had development interventions focused on the empowerment of women, it would produce a significant increase in the income of another 58 million people and the resilience of another 235 million.
“Achieving efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable agri-food systems will depend on the empowerment of all women and gender equality. Women have always worked in agrifood systems. It is time we make agri-food systems work for women,” added QU Dongyu.
Latin America and the Caribbean
In Latin America and the Caribbean, governments have increasingly addressed the challenges related to the structural gaps faced by rural women in access to land, inputs, services, finance and digital technology, developing policies and programs that contribute to closing the inequalities that they face.
However, women are more food insecure than men in all regions of the world and the gap has widened since the COVID-19 outbreak. Globally, the gap between men and women in the prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity increased to 4.3 percentage points in 2021 from 1.7 percentage points in 2019, largely driven by widening differences in Latin America and the Caribbean, where the gap reached 11.3 percentage points.
Women make up 36% of all workers in the agri-food system in Latin America and the Caribbean, but show substantial variation in the proportion of women among countries in the region. For example, they represent 54% of workers in the agri-food system in Bolivia. In some countries in the region, the proportion has increased since 2005: by 9 percentage points in El Salvador, 8 percentage points in Colombia, and 6.3 percentage points in Ecuador.
The proportion of women in the agricultural labor force is higher or increasing relative to that of men in rural areas with high and predominantly male emigration.
recommendations
Overall, the report concludes that reducing gender inequalities in livelihoods, improving access to resources, and building resilience are critical pathways to gender equality, women’s empowerment, and better fairer and more sustainable agri-food systems.
This implies filling 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 strengthen land tenure security.