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Equality for Women Can Reduce World Hunger, Says UN Report
Ending discrimination against women in agriculture could feed 150m people, according to Food and Agriculture Organisation
Giving women better access to land, technology and other agricultural resources could reduce the number of hungry people by up to 150 million, according to the UN food agency.
Rice planting in Pakistan. Women make up 43% of the agriculture workforce in developing countries. (Arif Ali/AFP/Getty Images)
The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said that about 925 million people across the globe were undernourished in 2010. Of these, 906 million live in developing countries.
Giving women the same tools and resources as men, including financial services, education and access to markets, could increase agricultural production in developing countries by 2.5% to 4%, it said in a report released on Monday . This could in turn reduce the number of hungry people by 12% to 17%, or by 100 to 150 million people.
The FAO director general, Jacques Diouf, said ending discrimination against women in agriculture was necessary to win the fight against world hunger. "Gender equality is not just a lofty ideal, it is also crucial for agricultural development and food security," he said.
Women make up 43% on average of the agricultural labour force in developing countries, said the report, released in Rome on the eve of International Women's Day. Typically, rural women who are employed tend to be kept in low-wage jobs and have seasonal or part-time work, according to the FAO.
Yields on plots managed by women are lower on average than those managed by men, a result of their lack of access to tools and technology compared to male farmers.
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22 Comments so far
Show AllYou sure do love that status quo and will do anything to defend it won't you?
I suppose you are against seat belt usage , drunk driving laws and mandated safety measures for cars because "People will always die in car accidents so whats the point?"
Er... That's not what he was saying. He was merely pointing out
1) Men are likely to produce more due to muscle superiority. I disagree with that in the case of farming (maybe in terms of military adaptability).
2) Men will never surrender enough "rights" to women to afford women equality in a universal manner. Animals (humans included) have a natural instinct to dominate, even their spouses.
Thats not what he is saying at all.
The suggestion man will NEVER surrender enough rights to afford women equality is a crock. Nor is it just "natural". It learned behaviour.
If person A can do it person B can do it . Eglatarian societies were the norm for 90 percent of human history.
I had a cat that used to pee on my curtains to mark his territory. Dogs do the same. Do you pee on your curtains to mark what is yours?
: I disagree with that in the case of farming (maybe in terms of military adaptability).
Working a manual plough is hard physical work, as is most non-mechanised fieldwork - putting in fences, breaking animals, etc. Women *can* do it, but men are simply bigger.
Afraid not, Paul.
The average man may be bigger than the average woman, but many women are bigger and stronger than many men.
Basing assumptions on someone's size or strength and not whether they have an innie or an outie will lead to more people who could do certain things doing them, and not being blocked purely because of their gender.
Sounds like a smart move to me.
Many studies point to women being the majority of the worlds farmers.
Wow, what a surprise. If only women had the same access to education and capital they could be more productive - who knew??
First, we need to abolish organized religions which perpetuate the myth that women must always be subservient to men, solely because the magical sky genie says so.
It's been proven in studies and real life that whenever and wherever women are given access to education and freedom of choice, the whole society improves dramatically. Also, and no less importantly, educated and empowered women have fewer children - a major factor when considering issues such as food and poverty.
educated and empowered women like condi rice and hilary clinton are assets for justice and peace?
i doubt that.
statistics can be turned into the best lies for the shalatans.
I was talking about women all over the world, especially in third world countries, since that really is the topic of this article. Keeping things in context helps.
And you are absolutely correct. It takes a sexist who must really hate women to come up with curioussteve's failed logic.
I don't know about other countries but the US has a bad habit of excluding the labor of house wives. I know, they don't make money but it's still disingenuous to exclude their hard work given that it's that work too which is part of the backbone of their husbands working and their children being able to attend school. Let's give credit where it's due please ! Please get the production numbers straight for goodness sakes !
...Looking at how our children are doing in the school system..(my generation) and the general lowering of salaries and the need for both parents to work in order to support a family. I think the focus on women getting in the work force has turned around and bit society in the ass. Oh well accommodate the wants of society and profit until the people figure it out again. Then they can accommodate and profit some more. Nothing against women in the workforce but the increase in workers has not played in our favor. anyways the UN is US controlled and has no real power but nice data. Nothing ever changes.
Don't women have enough to do with home and children in 3rd world countries? Many times their husbands are off fighting, etc.
No, women still need equal access to education and finances for business. Sexist throwback ideas can go all the way to biblical times and you can see how they don't work by looking to the countries that use them.
I'm a man, an activist. One project I've got on the back burner, is a movement I'm thinking how to start up, to give women two votes, to the guys' traditional one vote. It would take a constitutional amendment but it could happen. That's at http://TwoVotes.org - I've gotten encouragement from many women, prominent among them Alice Walker, the author, but I want to try and keep it a mens' led organization, a guy thing, you know, like "well, we've messed things up about as bad as can be, maybe it's time to give the women a shot at running things, maybe just for a thousand years or so, enough to give them sufficient time to establish whatever kind of government they want. The idea does come from a talk by Alice that I attended a few years ago, wherein she talked about "Government by Grandmother" which according to Alice, comes from the Iroquois *Five Nations* Indian tribes (Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca nations) - as they had a Great Iroquois Council to decide matters of war and peace - fifty male "sachems", or chiefs sat on the council. The sachems were chosen by the women who headed the family clans (clans were headed by the grandmother). All council decisions had to be made unanimously. I would think that this would give defacto veto power over any war and peace decision to the elder women of the tribe. I could live with it now.
Also, given that granting increased voting power to women is probably a few years off, of course, I've been working a idea, that of a man "giving" his vote to a woman in his life, soliciting her intentions in an election situation, and volunteering to duplicate her vote, thereby doubling her vote. I in 2000, 2002, and 2004 I doubled my wife's vote, in 2006,08, and 2010 I double my adult daughter's vote. I can claim that as a result, no election results were changed, but both my wife and daughter were both emotionally and politically empowered more than a little I think by the experience.
here's a little background on the Iroquois: http://adot.com/url1.html
"I'm a man, an activist. One project I've got on the back burner, is a movement I'm thinking how to start up, to give women two votes, to the guys' traditional one vote. It would take a constitutional amendment but it could happen."
I'm not in favor.
Let's not elevate one side of the scale to the detriment of the other. Yes, the scale has been unbalanced for a long time, but skewing it all the way to the other side is not the answer.
Having said that, I do like the idea of a Council of Grandmothers, especially in matters of war. I believe (fervently hope) that the majority of women in the United States are not like Condaleeza Rice and Hillary Clinton. Although, when I see Tea Party women...
The comments are bloody awful.
Do better!
They'd be better if we'd enabled a bigger proportion of the population...
They certainly are the majority now, aren't they...
This is an important report.
I would add, however, that, since women make up 43% of the agricultural labor force n developing countries, then when farmers as a group are oppressed with cheap farm prices, that's a huge women's issue. Historically, the main problems has been overproduction causing cheap world farm prices, and dumping of below cost grain on Least Developed Countries which are 70% rural. That caused the food poverty crisis of today and 1981-2006. That earlier date is when the poverty was caused. Today world prices are much higher, ending that impact on food poverty. That's great, except that, in the short term, that quarter century of poverty so devastated farming countries, that the recent higher farm prices create an even bigger problem (again, short term). We might end up with oversupply again in five years, and the low prices that caused the poverty in the first place.
It's a dilemma, a raging dilemma. The overall solution, beyond the specific things for women in this report, and the specific things for sustainability in another recent article at Common Dreams, is to put a floor under farm prices, with supply reductions as needed, and a ceiling over farm prices with reserve supplies to place on the market when needed. These policies, adequately implemented, would prevent the export dumping of 1981-2006. Plus massive short term aid, buying food at fair trade, living wage prices from LDC farmers, and giving it to hungry people.
Half of the farm labor pool "in Eastern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa" are women. They need fair trade, living wage farm prices. This is supported by the "Africa Group at WTO" and "Via Campesina". Google my name and these terms (in quotes) for documentation.