The Borlaug Blog

When I became President of the Canadian International Development Agency in 1983, the world was much taken by Chairman Mao's "Women hold up half the sky." It seemed to portend change toward recognition, expanded potential and greater welcome for diversification of female capacities.

The prophetic elements were accurate - in many countries, in multiple fields and disciplines, for many women, right up to those who have become Heads of State and Governments.  Most of us have seen - and appreciated - the internet-circulated comparisons between female leaders and some male leaders in countries with wide differentials in the spread and protective measures in place vis-à-vis COVID 19.

So is a continuing, and maybe increased push toward equality essential in today's agriculture?  Women are now researchers, managers, industrial innovators, farm owners, veterinarians, bankers, agronomists and the list goes on. But there is another side to the coin. According to the FAO, women comprise 43 percent of agricultural labor in developing countries, yet have less access to productive resources, markets and services than do men. In India, a country where females form the backbone of the sector, more than 70 percent of rural women workers are engaged in agricultural work, according to 2017-18 data published by the government's National Sample Survey Office. In contrast to their high participation, women own 13.9 percent of landholdings, the agricultural census of 2015-16 found.

Let me dip back again in time: It was as a new CIDA President that I heard from a Canadian agricultural project manager that he would not take on another such project “unless I can be guaranteed that we work with women; they work harder, and they welcome innovation.” I have learned in countless visits since that time that too high a percent of women in agriculture worked then, and primarily now, as cultivators or agricultural laborers on small parcels of land, most of them as unpaid family labor. This type of informal, home-based work impacts official statistics and leads. How do these women bring ingenuity and new ideas to their tasks?

Does this matter, when the issue is global food stocks?  Indubitably: empirical scientific evidence shows that small farmers feed the world. According to the UN Food and Agricultural Organization, 70 percent of food we consume globally comes from small farms.  So, if we want to feed a growing world population, we need to cultivate the ingenuity, creativity and productivity of these women - it's that simple.

Making it happen?  Not quite so simple - but doable and being done:   How to help women get the strength and space to innovate?  Mostly, they have to insist on it themselves.  Their own national, regional and community authorities need the conviction and inspiration, if not to stand behind them, to not get in the way.  Do international donors and organizations play a role? Yes, but it's not the dominant role once assumed. 

What's the agenda?  Agricultural technology and improvement, of course. But it is essential that investment be concentrated in the ancillary elements - land titles, women's inheritance rights, access to technology for new knowledge, facilitated market access to open pathways, and so on. In the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture, young women are trained to be profit-making  Agri-Entrepreneurs in India. Our efforts for them include separate training for women. Single-sex educational opportunities encourage local families to let their daughters and sisters participate.  Other work vital to agriculture is financial education, some of it related to insurance. As this work takes off, a series of measures will help women benefit. They include a needs-analysis by gender (using different questionnaires), facilitating women's groups to discuss their requirements.

So much has happened since my CIDA days, and more will happen.  As the Government Heads that have made a difference in COVID-19 would assert: It's not only getting there - it's being innovative and decisive.   More of our world needs to accept this reality for those millions of women working in agriculture if we - and these millions - are to create the greener, more productive world we seek.