Public policies needed for rural women in the Americas
San José, Costa Rica, October 12 2010 (IICA) During a visit to the Headquarters of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), four women from Latin America and the Caribbean with diverse, but strikingly similar visions and life stories, through their words, painted a mural depicting the realities facing rural women in that region.
They were invited to IICA Headquarters, in Costa Rica, to participate as panel members in an international forum on women in agriculture and their contribution to food security in the Americas held on October 7.
The panelists, from Mexico, Uruguay, Antigua and Barbuda and Bolivia, put a woman’s face to a technical document prepared by two experts from Chile recognized internationally for their studies on the topic of gender: Marecla Ballara and Ninoska Damianovic.
Minister of Agriculture and Lands of Bolivia, Nemesia Achacollo Tola, travelled all night to be at the forum, not even stopping at her hotel on the way from the airport. Outside the meeting room, where the President of Costa Rica, Laura Chinchilla, had just spoken, she dropped off her small black bag and entered the meeting room to join in the panel discussion. She began her remarks by saying “We peasant women always get the worst of it…”
Beatriz Paredes, from Mexico, who wore a bright pink “huipil” and had her long salt-and-pepper hair woven into a single braid, has held numerous political offices: federal deputy, president of the PRI, former governor of Tlaxcala and former Secretary General of the National Confederation of Peasants, etc. etc. Her voice is powerful, her language insightful “I was born in a continent that opened my eyes, like those of a lark.”
Joanne Massiah, from Antigua and Barbuda, is a Senator and Minister of State of Antigua and Barbuda. She was Minister of Agriculture, Lands, Environment, Marine Resources and Agroindustry of her country at one time. A descendent of rural folk, she went on to study at prestigious universities in New York and Oregon. There is strength in her statements on Caribbean women, young people and, above all, human rights.
Ana Arocha, from Uruguay, just like the other three women, has long struggled on behalf of the rural women of her country, defending their right to own land, organize and obtain loans and demanding equal treatment… at one time throwing rocks from behind barricades, but preferring now to engage in consensus building and dialogue.
The panel discussion involving these iron-willed women, divided into morning and afternoon sessions, was moderated by two other strong women: Gloria Abraham, the first woman Minister of Agriculture and Livestock of Costa Rica, and Karen Lezny, the first woman Deputy Director General of IICA.
Throughout the day-long forum, the panelists and moderators made it very clear that women have played and continue to play a very important role in agriculture, one that is not fully appreciated and places women at a great disadvantage.
The problems shared by women can be seen clearly in the mural:
• The lack of legal safeguards vis-à-vis the ownership of land, which makes them more vulnerable. This is a strategic limitation because access to land is a prerequisite for women to engage in agriculture, stay in the countryside and have the option to become producers.
• Inequality of opportunity in terms of education, and even training, for women, especially girls and adolescents, which perpetuates the cycle of disadvantage and exclusion.
• Difficulty in accessing resources, particularly water, and necessary infrastructure, which would make their work in the fields and the home easier.
• Limited participation in markets, and unequal distribution of benefits.
• Difficulty in acquiring loans.
• The lack of specific data on their contribution to production, not only of food but also of products such as handicrafts, which help to make the work of rural women invisible.
The mural also shows rural women in their diversity: those who engage in backyard agriculture for home consumption, small-scale producers and a few who participate in markets.
In the mural we also see, and can almost hear, them as they make their demands
• Policies are needed to ensure that the contribution of women to agriculture and food security brings them greater benefits and a more equal share of responsibilities.
• There is an urgent need for treatment that is equitable and consistent with human rights, as a sine qua non of greater equity and for improving the terms governing women’s participation in agriculture.
• It is necessary to formulate state policies that are comprehensive and flexible and include concepts such as gender mainstreaming and gender-specificity; in some cases, affirmative action policies intended to make up for disadvantages must be adopted.
• Multisectoral, long-term (sustainable) policies that will provide comprehensive solutions are needed.
• More budgetary resources must be allocated to address the problems of agriculture in general and those of rural women in particular.
• Legal safeguards vis-à-vis ownership of land is a prerequisite for improving the living and working condition of peasant women.
• To help make women agricultural producers more productive, to give them the necessary inputs, to provide them with loans and extension services and to improve their access to markets based on their capacity are some of the things that would make it possible to break the vicious cycles of poverty and exclusion.
• There is an urgent need for state policies aimed at providing rural women with equal access to educational opportunities.
And, of course, the challenges women face were touched upon in the mural and the comments of the panelists:
• To value the initiatives they undertake; to learn from their way of relating to nature, especially to mother Earth. In order words, to hold peasant agriculture in high regard.
• To take into account the different production capacities of women.
• To use new means of communication for women and countries and provide new types of training in accordance with the needs of women.
• To create opportunities for work that will allow for economies of scale, coordination of efforts and synergies to improve the position of women vis-à-vis the value chains.
In concluding, the panelists made recommendations regarding what governments and organizations such as IICA must do to create or strengthen the human, social and production-related capacities of rural women:
• To adjust technical assistance, drawing on existing knowledge and capabilities, ensuring that it is focused on the specific needs of women rural producers.
• To make the topic of rural women a priority on public agendas, especially in the mi
nistries of agriculture, but also in all those related to the topic, and also in public budgets.
• To promote the organization of rural women, especially networks of women rural producers.
• To incorporate the visions of rural organizations and organizations of agricultural producers, particularly women producers.
• To have the political will to remove the cultural, social, political or economic obstacles that hinder the participation of women on equal grounds.
• To encourage contact with women’s organizations and to base their work on the needs of those organizations.
In summing up the forum, IICA Director General Victor M. Villalobos told the panelists “All of us here today have learned from your reflections, but, more importantly, we felt the emotion in your voices as a result of a life of making the world more equitable for women, in particular rural women. It is time to reaffirm IICA’s commitment to the women who live and work in the countryside.”
For more information:
melania.portilla@iica.int
Página Foro Mujeres Rurales
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