IDEALS

LUANDA, (Aug. 11, 2009) IPS/GIN – U.S. Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton is using her trip to Africa to promote agricultural
development as an approach to food aid which she has described as
a “signature element” of the new Obama administration’s foreign
policy.

“We are convinced that investing in agriculture is one of the most
high-impact, cost-effective strategies available for reducing
poverty and saving and improving lives,” Secretary Clinton told an
audience at the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute in Nairobi.

Adding: “If you don’t do agriculture, you don’t eat, and that’s
the most important goal of any society.” Read the rest of this entry →

UTTARAKHAND, India, (Aug. 21, 2009) IPS/GIN – Agriculture and
allied activities are the main source of livelihood of the people
of the hilly state of Uttarakhand, located in the northwestern part
of India and one of the country’s most enchanting regions. But
difficult terrain and lack of road connectivity is a major problem
for most farmers to transport their local produce to the market.

For farmers like Chunnilal of Teenya village in Uttarkashi district
(one of the largest districts in the state and situated in the
northwest), navigating the tough mountain terrain with heavy loads
on their back has been a way of life for decades. But all that has
dramatically changed with the installation of a ropeway that
carries produce from high-altitude areas to an area accessible by
roads, cutting transportation costs by over half and perceptibly
easing their workload. Read the rest of this entry →

SAN PEDRO, Uruguay, (Aug. 15, 2009) IPS/GIN – Uruguayans and
tourists from other countries escape the stress of city life and
learn about rural living on once prosperous dairy farms and
picturesque small farms near the city of Colonia in western
Uruguay, where families have found a new livelihood – and way of
life – in “agro-ecotourism”.

Families in the small farming town of San Pedro, near the city of
Colonia, turned to that alternative to overcome the severe economic
crisis of 2002, which threatened to wipe their farms off the map. Read the rest of this entry →

Think small to overcome big
problems – that was the message to African governments being urged
to do more to increase food security and reduce hunger and
malnutrition on the continent.

Jacques Diouf, Director-General of the United Nation’s Food and
Agriculture Organization (FAO), told delegates at the regional
conference for Africa staged in Luanda in the first week of May
that there needed to be a focus on “small producers” and “family
farming”. Read the rest of this entry →

HAVANA, (May 19, 2010) IPS/GIN – Cuba’s strategy to boost
production and reduce imports of food is intended to untangle the
bureaucratic knots that hinder privately-run farms, responsible for
70 percent of the food on the country’s dinner tables.

But in the five-year programme that the government announced last
weekend there was no sign of liberalization for the farm sector,
which is struggling to respond to the challenge of supplying food
for Cuba’s 11.2 million people. Read the rest of this entry →

MBABANE, (May 20, 2010) IPS/GIN – An accomplished farmer who won
the coveted Woman Farmer of the Year Award in 2008, Thabile
Dlamini-Gooday wants to uplift the standard of other women in
agriculture. She believes that if women farmers were to work
together they could fight hunger and significantly reduce poverty
among themselves.

But she faces one big challenge.

“Women farmers are difficult to find because we don’t know one
another,” says Dlamini-Gooday.

Often she runs out of stock and would like to refer her customers
to other women farmers. But men end up taking the business because
there is no national sex-disaggregated database to help her
identify her female counterparts and the kind of products they
sell.

In fact, says Dlamini-Gooday, government cannot even begin to
address the specific needs of women in agriculture because the
Ministry of Agriculture keeps no such data.

“As women we lack certain skills in farming such as rearing
livestock which is traditionally considered a man’s job. But if
government does not even know the number of women farmers out there
then it cannot address these issues,” she told IPS.

In most African countries women, make up the majority of the poor,
live in rural areas and are subsistence farmers. Yet Swaziland is
not the only African country lacking sex-disaggregated data on
agriculture.

According to United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization
(FAO) estimates, women make up 60 percent of the agricultural labor
force while they produce between 60 and 80 percent of the world’s
food crops. These women’s contribution to national development
largely goes unrecognized and unpaid.

Dr Lindiwe Sibanda, the chief executive officer of the Food,
Agriculture, and Natural Resources Network (FANRPAN), blames the
World Bank’s economic structural adjustment programmes for the lack
of disaggregated data.

According to Sibanda, the requirement for countries to downsize
their agricultural research and extension services under SAPS
destroyed the whole infrastructure of data collection. Therefore,
Africa continues to plan based on data that is not in touch with
people’s lived realities.

“In many instances, policies and programmes in rural areas, as
implemented at the local level, are not responsive to women’s
needs. In part, this is because planners and policy-makers are
often not even aware that women farmers face special and specific
challenges and those programmes need to be designed with their
situations in mind,” explained Sibanda.

Sibanda said household surveys for data collection on livelihood
assets, which include human, capital, social networks, physical
assets, financial and the use of natural resources as a source of
livelihood could help remedy the situation.

“If this is done biannually we will be able to accurately tell the
story of who is surviving on what and the development interventions
that are appropriate for women and children,” said Sibanda.

African governments now have the tools to conduct such surveys,
thanks to the FAO. The U.N. agency has devised an Agri-Gender
Statistics Toolkit that will help countries gather more information
on differences between men and women in agriculture and contribute
to agricultural development.

Launched in April, the toolkit provides the analytical framework
needed to collect data on the nature of women and men’s
agricultural work, their access to resources and exposure to food
insecurity.

“With more specific information, policy makers can provide greater
support to those who lack access and control over agricultural
resources and help women to achieve greater equality and food
security,” said Diana Tempelman, toolkit author and FAO senior
officer for gender and development.

Tempelman emphasized that sex-disaggregated data collection is a
new area that has been developing based on an increasing
understanding of the relevance of knowing the impact of gender
relations on individual, family and national development.

The fact that the toolkit was developed in response to a request
from the African Commission on Agricultural Statistics (AFCAS) is
a positive sign that governments are recognizing the contributions
of both women and men to agricultural development and the need for
planning that takes this into consideration.

Although there has always been data on men and women, this has
mainly been collected for the purposes of determining the sex and
age composition of populations, education, health, certain sections
of formal employment and other sectors.

“But there is scope for improving the availability of
socio-economic data reflecting all men and women’s involvement in
development and their specific constraints and opportunities,” said
Tempelman.

Besides the newly introduced toolkit, other initiatives involving
the development of gender-based statistics are emerging. Tempelman
disclosed that FAO, Paris 21, the World Bank, the European Union,
the Economic Commission for Africa and other partner organizations
are supporting countries to prepare National Strategies for the
Development of Statistics.

This will ensure greater cohesion between the different data
collection exercises, improving the availability of data in general
and gender statistics in particular.

The new developments may be just in time to help women farmers like
Dlamini-Gooday get the recognition and assistance they need and to
network with other women farmers.

HAVANA, (May 3, 2010) IPS/GIN – Backed by its considerable
experience in urban agriculture, Cuba is tackling the challenge of
food security through a new initiative that will bring farming to
the suburban areas surrounding cities and towns.

The suburban agricultural programme was originally announced last
August by President Ra£l Castro, who declared that food production
is “a matter of national security” and should involve “the largest
number of people possible, through all available forms of land
ownership.”

The idea forms part of a strategy that defines municipalities as
key elements in terms of decision-making on agriculture. For each
municipality, three areas are contemplated: urban agriculture,
suburban agriculture and conventional or rural agriculture. Read the rest of this entry →

GABORONE, (May 5, 2010) IPS/GIN – On the outskirts of Botswana’s
capital, Gaborone, Charity Molefhi is learning the ropes of the
horticulture industry.

The 32-year-old former insurance consultant is one of many female
farmers who are actively participating in Botswana’s agricultural
sector to boost food security, employment creation and increase the
sector’s contribution to the National Gross Domestic Product. Read the rest of this entry →

BRUSSELS, (May 3, 2010) IPS/GIN – India is facing strong pressure
to open up its markets to cheese and other dairy produce from
Europe, even though the New Delhi government has expressed fears
about how small farmers could be forced into deeper poverty as a
result.

Because its dairy sector employs 90 million people, India has
advocated that milk and cheese be excluded from the scope of the
free trade agreement under negotiation with the European Union. Read the rest of this entry →

NAIROBI, (May 16, 2009) IPS/GIN – Training by the Alliance for a
Green Revolution in Africa has armed a hundred farmers in central
Kenya with an improved understanding of their local markets and the
skills to command higher prices for their bananas.

“Before, they were selling at three shillings per kilo (0.04 U.S.
cents), now they are selling for up to ten times more,” Anne
Mbaabu, director of the Market Access Program of the Alliance for
a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) told IPS. Read the rest of this entry →