Honoring Women Farmers: Rural Women’s Day 2024
This International Day of Rural Women, we express our deep respect for the amazing women farmers we work with, and for their impressive accomplishments in the face of extensive barriers.
Rural women are key players in agriculture, from working on family farms and in kitchen gardens to going into business as vegetable growers, seedling producers, and suppliers of biopesticides and vermicompost. However, challenges such as time constraints, lack of recognition and respect, and gender disparities in farming knowledge and land access can limit their advancement.
Learning more about women farmers’ daily lives, aspirations, and opportunities is crucial to ensuring greater inclusion of women in EWS-KT activities—and in sustainable vegetable production.
Learning from Women Farmers
In 2022, we began undertaking focused studies of women farmers in India, the Philippines, Tanzania, Uganda, and more recently, Myanmar, using interviews, group discussions, and surveys to explore women farmers’ experiences and needs.
The status and opportunities afforded to women farmers are highly contextual, underlining the importance of localized research. The women farmers study turns next to Nigeria. Our team there, led by Ruth Saleh Ardzard, has made significant strides in engaging women farmers in Kaduna and Kano states, with a deep impact on local communities. Data collection for the study in Nigeria is scheduled to begin this month.
The Path Forward
The country-based studies completed so far have led to several recommendations that we are applying to our current and future work.
Inclusive Training: Changes to the delivery of our training include organizing more meetings and technical training sessions specifically for women farmers, as well as holding these events at times of day that align with women’s very busy schedules.
Our studies have also found that women prefer training sessions and crop demonstration fields that are nearby, often due to limited mobility and safety concerns. Our model prioritizes local demonstrations and training events that better accommodate women farmers.
We are also incorporating a more extensive gender approach in our activities, making sure to spend more time on subjects that women participants are not previously familiar with, and featuring more women in our technical videos. For our call-in radio programs in several countries, having women broadcasters and guests showcases women’s expertise and encourages more participation from women farmers.
Greater Access to Knowledge, Inputs, and Financing: Our studies have identified that women need better access to farming knowledge, quality agricultural inputs, and financing in order to improve and scale up their vegetable production.
Community farmer trainers (CFTs)—knowledgeable, trained farmers who act as local resources within their village and nearby villages—play a pivotal role in ensuring the continuity of training and support for women farmers. CFTs provide technical farming knowledge and facilitate farmers’ connections with stakeholders such as agricultural input suppliers and vegetable buyers. These connections are especially important in regions where women have limited mobility. Our CFT program aims to build a network of local resource people to promote sustainable growth and development in vegetable production. By training more women as CFTs, we are also ensuring ongoing mentorship for women who are treating farming as a business.
Our programs in various countries are also exploring different ways to link women with financing options, and more of our projects are including a financial literacy component to make sure that farmers understand the purpose, advantages, and risks of agricultural loans.
These are just a few ways that we are acting on the findings from our ongoing women farmers study to empower women in agriculture. As women become more confident and independent through agriculture, their contributions to household income and family well-being grow. Training women farmers is not only a pathway to economic growth but also a powerful tool for social change in rural communities.
