Food Sovereignty and Inequality: Gender and Agriculture in Latin America
Gender inequality and global hunger are interconnected. Not only does hunger reduce school attendance more for girls than boys, but 60% of undernourished people are women or girls. Additionally, undernourished women often give birth to low-weight children, which perpetuate the cycle of undernourishment and poverty. Food sovereignty and gender are also linked. Food sovereignty describes when local communities make their own decisions regarding their food and agriculture policy. Unfortunately, many women are excluded from participating in this discussion and are consistently disempowered in the politics of food production, consumption, and distribution, so issues particularly related to women are often overlooked.
How Women are Disenfranchised
This disempowerment can be seen through the utilisation of genetically-modified (GM) maize varieties in Mexico. These GM varieties actually require more time and more firewood to cook versus non-GM varieties thus requiring more labour and time from women. In Mexico, rural women already work 89 hours per week on average, compared to only 58 hours for men. Globally, women spend 4.5 hours a day, on average, on unpaid work including childcare, laundry, and cooking, which is significantly more than man. In fact, the extra labour inputs have deterred many women, especially younger women, to sacrifice either making tortillas from scratch or making tortillas altogether as women often have to balance their time between domestic work and agricultural work. Instead, many women either purchase pre-processed maize flour or tortillas that are of lower quality, less appetising, and less filling than tortillas made from traditional maize varieties. However, women still support their husbands’ choice to plant GM maize varieties because they are high-yielding and provide more income to the household even at the cost of additional work.
In addition to determining what crops to plant, land rights is another way women in agriculture are disenfranchised. Men are more likely to hold larger plots of land, more land titles, and have soil with better quality than women. While Latin American women are responsible for approximately half of the region’s food supply for 600 million people, only between 8% and 30% of land is owned by women. In addition to having less land, smaller plots, and land with lower soil quality, women also have less access to credit and training. The Food and Agriculture Organisation stated that “if women had the same access to productive resources as men, they could increase yields on their farms by 20-30 percent. This could raise total agricultural output in developing countries by 2.5-4 percent, which could in turn reduce the number of hungry people in the world by 12-17 percent”. Not only does this land ownership inequality prevent women from being able to grow their own crops, it creates an economic dependence on men for resources and can explain how 40% of rural Latin American women do not have their own incomes, compared to just 14% of men.
Women as Agents of Change
Climate change is expected to greatly impact agricultural production through increases in drought and climate variability, which can further marginalize women in agriculture. However, women also have unique knowledge that may help present possible adaptations and solutions for their communities. For example, knowledge about small, local crops and the local environment is often held by women. This knowledge and expertise of lunar phases, ancestry, and culture can be used in climate change mitigation efforts, disaster recovery and reduction, and other adaptation strategies. In addition, the responsibilities of women as caretakers and leaders in households and communities position them to bring about positive change and attempt innovative strategies in response to climate change. Women in Nicaragua have begun using agroecology and patio gardens as innovative ways to provide food for their families, and women in Cuba have started to manage irrigation systems using solar energy technologies as a response to climate change.
Going forward
Overall, we not only need to be mindful of the ways in which women and other marginalized groups are excluded from agricultural production and decision-making, we need to acknowledge their roles in solving some of the world’s most pressing issues. Without engagement with disempowered people, the cycle of marginalization will continue for women and girls and we might miss out on key adaptation strategies needed to alleviate the impacts of climate change.
From Salem, Oregon, Micaela Edelson is a U.S.-U.K. Fulbright Scholar earning her Masters of Science degree in Environment and Development at the University of Leeds. This blog post was written with contributions by Elizabeth Cooper and Same Donnelly.