Women and agricultural empowerment

Agriculture is one of the most primitive and most essential occupations. As important as it is in all parts of the world, developing countries especially depend heavily on it. Women have always played an important role in the process and still continue to that. Sadly, like all other professions women face challenges in agriculture as well. US Government’s Feed the Future initiative aims to understand these challenges and explains how these women are empowered/disempowered in the face of strong gender disparity through the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI).

Studies have shown that equal access to assets and opportunities for both genders have a better impact on the family in terms of health, education and poverty reduction. The major issues the women face are in areas of: production and related decisions, resources- their access to them decisions related to it, income- its control and uses, leadership- in the community, and time and the way they utilize it. The WEAI, has examined women in three developing economies- Bangladesh, Guatemala, Uganda and their challenges based on these five indicators.

In Bangladesh, only six women were found to have completed their secondary education in the studied region but, interestingly education was found to be insignificant factor in empowerment. Women, who were found to be empowered in agriculture based on the WEAI index, were also reported to have more decision making rights in their faiths, daily tasks and family planning. The planning association of the region further reported that 75% of the empowered women in agriculture felt they could take family planning decisions, compared to the 61% women who weren’t found empowered.

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Most women in the studied Guatemala region were found have completed only their primary education or less. But unlike Bangladesh, there was a significant impact of education and empowerment. 35%% of the educated women were found to be empowered in the region as compared to 20% of the women who weren’t empowered, according to the index. The statistics further show that 85% of the empowered women compared to the 74% women who were found to be not empowered in agriculture; could make decisions related to their health.

In Uganda, like Guatemala, there was a positive relation between education and women empowerment. 45% of the women who had completed their primary education were found to be empowered, as compared to 35% women. Lack of a sense of leadership along with having no control over the resources played a huge factor in the disempowerment of the women in the region.

One can easily gather from this data that in most places, education plays a huge role in empowering women and the lack of it moves them away from their rights and leadership.

ORIGINAL SOURCE: Feed the Future

http://www.ifpri.org/sites/default/files/publications/weai_brochure.pdf