Rural is resilient
Anna Mutavati, the UN Women Kenya Representative says increasing rural women's access to opportunities and ensuring their meaningful participation along agricultural value chains empowers them economically.
What you need to know:
- There are around 20 million women employed in the agriculture sector.
- Most of them experience unequal access to land, credit, skills and education.
- Gender discrimination has been identified as one of the factors that constrain sustainable use of land in Kenya.
- Giving women equal access (as men) to agricultural or livestock resources could increase production on farms in developing countries by 20 to 30 per cent according to FAO data.
Despite deeply rooted structural and societal inequalities, rural women and their contribution to agriculture form the backbone of Kenya’s economy.
There are around 20 million women employed in the agriculture sector and so far in 2020, many have likely been affected in some way by either drought, floods or locust swarms - not to mention the economic impacts of Covid-19.
Most of these women experience unequal access to land, credit, skills and education. Women manage 40 per cent of small-scale farms, yet have access to less than 10 per cent of available credit. In terms of land ownership, only two per cent of titles are in a woman’s name and only five per cent of titles are under joint ownership between men and women.
Gender discrimination has been identified as one of the factors that constrain sustainable use of land in Kenya.
Natural resources
Discrimination is expressed through the differences in user rights to land, legal status, division of labour and decision-making between men and women, and this includes ownership and use of land. Secure access to - and ownership of - land and natural resources are also key pillars to attainment of food and nutrition security.
Investing in women pays off in improving environmental conditions. This entails the access, use and management of land resources by women and consideration of environmental sustainability.
Giving women equal access (as men) to agricultural or livestock resources could increase production on farms in developing countries by 20 to 30 per cent according to Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) data.
Improving rural women’s economic empowerment means increasing their access to opportunities and ensuring their meaningful participation along agricultural value chains. This includes investing in rural women’s training and skills development, necessary for increasing agricultural production, business management and marketing.
Climate smart agriculture
Agribusiness is not limited to on-farm production. Value addition, providing agri-support products and services to rural farming communities provides an important avenue in empowering rural women through the diversification of revenue streams available to them.
Climate smart agriculture (CSA) holds huge potential for a turnaround for women and their households. This approach means reaching women and other vulnerable groups in rural areas to strengthen their adaptive capacities to climate change and increase their productivity and incomes.
Gender sensitive CSA requires their participation in local policy making at the county level.
Improving rural women’s economic empowerment means increasing their access to opportunities and ensuring their meaningful participation along agricultural value chains.
Rural farming
The World Food Programme (WFP) argues that this must include investing in rural women’s training and skills development, necessary for increasing agricultural production, business management and marketing. Agribusiness is not limited to on-farm production.
Value addition, providing agri-support products and services to rural farming communities provides an important avenue in empowering rural women through diversification of revenue streams available to them.
Women are traditionally the prime participants in both the agricultural and natural resource production systems. This implies that women hold the power to sustainable production, use and development of Kenya’s land resource.
Gender equality champions
Therefore, it is necessary that barriers that inhibit women from full control of land be removed, so that they attain optimal sustainable use and conservation.
This can be achieved through smart partnerships in agriculture, which bring together the Ministry of Gender, gender equality champions at national and county levels; agricultural experts and technical and financial partners such as the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA).
KOICA is supporting a joint programme on gender responsive and climate resilient agriculture by UN Women and FAO in Kenya’s arid and semi-arid land (ASAL) regions targeting over 12,000 beneficiaries across three counties by 2024.
If this approach is replicated and scaled up, Kenya could see huge returns in a transformative, climate smart agriculture sector that puts women at the centre and front of the agriculture value chain.
Anna Mutavati, UN Women Kenya Representative
Lauren Landis, WFP Kenya Representative and Country Director
Tobias Takavarasha, FAO Kenya Representative
Yunjung Han, KOICA Kenya Office, Deputy Country Director
