Breakout Session 10: Empowering women and vulnerable groups to become successful farmers

Paper "Empowering women and vulnerable groups to become successful farmers" by Mahabub Hossain, BRAC and WMH Jain, BAU

Chair’s remarks and key points:  Marcella Villareal, FAO

• Women in traditional societies can be encouraged to pursue independent farming if credit and training is provided to them. A project in Bangladesh saw women grow more vegetables and relatively diversify their agriculture. However, the lack of training and research prevented diversification to spice cultivation.

• Women’s empowerment needs to be studied in a broader framework, economic, social and political empowerment being equally essential. This is to fully account for the systemic exclusion of different groups, including women, from access to resources and technology.

• The burden of labour, and levels of drudgery, needs to be probed as women become more and more engaged in economic activities. Empowerment will not be a linear process, however; the care economy and reproductive activities cannot be overlooked while doing such an analysis.

• A dearth of empirical analysis of women’s empowerment was observed in the session. There should be larger samples for quantitative and qualitative analysis to comprehend the issues of gender relations as they play out in agriculture.

• Training is absolutely essential and must accompany any economic interventions, for the latter to succeed in empowering women. Training helps women to acquire higher self-esteem, developing leadership capacity, overcome fears, make community decisions and become capable to achieve their objectives.

• The role of micro-credit often associated with women’s empowerment often does not address the needs of agriculture, even for a full cycle of agricultural production. Farmer-owned and -led credit unions with nearly zero transaction costs are a promising option.

Synthesis of discussion

Women in traditional societies can be encouraged to pursue independent farming if credit and training is provided to them. An assessment of the North-West Crop Diversification Project (NCDP) in Bangladesh shows that it succeeded in inducing women to grow more vegetables and relatively diversify their agriculture. However, a lack of training and research prevented the diversification to spice cultivation, which was one of the major initial objectives of the project.
The case study showed that women were more involved in livestock activities. There was some social empowerment in terms of women attending more meetings and joint decision-making within households. However, social empowerment has broader dimensions than the aspects studied in the project.

It was felt that the issue of empowerment of women needs to be studied in a broader framework. While economic empowerment is important, social and political empowerment is equally essential. In fact, the whole gender system of social relations, including power relations, need to be accounted for in any study of transforming women farmers.  A further essential aspect is the systemic exclusion of different groups, including women, from access to resources and technology.

A dearth of empirical analysis of women’s empowerment was observed in the session. There should be larger samples for quantitative analysis, and more qualitative analysis to comprehend the issues of gender relations as they play out in agriculture. The relations of complementarities between male and female farmers needs to be probed through a household approach.

The burden of labour on women, along with the levels of drudgery, needs to be probed as become more and more engaged in economic activities. There may not always be an unequivocal or linear empowerment of women as they take up a larger number of economic activities. For instance, the care economy and reproductive activities cannot be ignored while doing such an analysis.

Training and capacity building was considered to be absolutely essential and must accompany any economic interventions, for the latter to succeed in empowering women. Training helps women to acquire higher self-esteem, developing leadership capacity, overcome fears, make community decisions and become capable to achieve their objectives. Other examples of interventions that lead to empowering women farmers are joint ownership of land and resources, and the entry of women into political institutions where crucial decisions regarding development policy (local, regional and national) are taken.

The role of micro-credit often associated with women’s empowerment often does not address the needs of agriculture, even for a full cycle of agricultural production. There should be more credit products targeting women farmers. In that context, farmer-owned and -led credit unions with nearly zero transaction costs were noted as a promising and sustainable venture in the context of small-scale agriculture.