In order to consider Gender Mainstreaming and Women\nEmpowerment in food and agriculture policies in the region one of course has to\nanalyze the status of women farmers, landless women and agriculture workers. I\nam from Pakistan and will speak of the socio-economic and political dictates\nthat face women, especially rural women.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The overarching policy environment has been based on\nneoliberal policies strongly dominated by semi-feudal and patriarchal control food\nand agricultural. Constant wars, and protracted crisis has further impacted\nrural societies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Given time limitations, I will highlight only a few case\nstudies that will show the impact of the above on landless & women farmers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even though Pakistan is an Islamic state, women\u2019s\nright to land is abysmal. According to the government of Pakistan:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe agriculture land distribution in Pakistan is highly skewed as only five percent of the agricultural households own 64 percent of farmland. On the other side, over 80 percent of farmers own less than five acres of land and women\u2019s share of ownership of land is less than two percent.\u201d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
In addition, the enforcement of the World Trade\nOrganization (WTO) agreements such as the Agreement on Agriculture, the TRIPS\nagreement and Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) mechanism and Technical Barriers\nto Trade (TBT) have further exacerbated the situation of women. For example,\nthe SPS agreement has demanded international standardization of milk and other\ndairy products. Women farmers, especially the landless put immense time and\nenergy on rearing livestock. Milk from livestock is one of the healthiest\nnourishing diets and allows them access to butter and clarified butter. Livestock\nalso allows them to increase their herd and is a valuable asset in times of\nemergency. The SPS through the Codex Alimentarius has forced international\nstandards that only benefit Big Dairy and Livestock corporations such as Nestle,\nTetra Pak International and Maxim International. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hand in hand with WTO other imperialist policies from International\nFinancial Institutions (IFIs), especially the International Monetary Fund (IMF)\nhave led to soaring agriculture input prices that are forcing farmers off the\nland and increasing the number of the landless. At the same time, the stress\nfor cash crop production such as sugarcane and maize is creating an immense\ncrisis in food production. Landless women and men are being forced to cut cane\nso that they can get the fodder off the cane for their livestock. They get no\nwages for the hard backbreaking. It needs to be pointed out that maize and\nsugarcane is also being used for ethanol production used in vehicles \u2013 so\nagrofuel for the rich capitalist countries to maintain their luxurious life\nstyles and hunger for women.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another example is of PepsiCo which has unveiled a\n\u201cNext Generation Agriculture Strategy\u201d based on which it will grow potatoes for\nits branded LAYS CHIPs on 7 million acres of land in 28 countries with Pakistan\nbeing one of them; in Pakistan it will use 20,000 acres of land of which 75% is\nin Kasur, Punjab. The potato growing season clashes with wheat cultivation and\nhence a critical staple food crop is lost; this is also true for sugarcane.\nWomen agriculture workers have across the centuries harvested wheat for\nhousehold food security as they are paid in kind. They are now forced to load\npotatoes for a measly 2USD – and only for at the most 40 days of work. Given\nthe very high inflation, these wages melt away without getting food security\nfor women. In addition, under patriarchal norms women\u2019s wages are controlled by\nmen; it is important to note that land lease is around USD570 and much beyond\nthe means of small and landless farmers. Its clear that we are now in the grip\nof a neocolonial system where foreign entities control our land and its\nproduction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It needs to be emphasized that LAYS potato chips are\nnot at all healthy, especially for our children \u2013 its only carbohydrate with\nhigh salt. It also requires high use of fertilizers and pesticides. Also note\nthat TRIPS agreement is being used here \u2013 farmers have no right to save the\npotato seeds \u2013 PepsiCo supervises the total land area where its potato is being\ngrown \u2013 in essence farmers are now part of the assembly line for PepsiCo LAYS\npotato chips and other brand products production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lastly, I would like to emphasis that protracted\ncrisis and wars of aggression have forced communities over vast areas to become\nrefugees. Women suffer the most as they lose their shelter, access to livelihood\nand livestock and are prey to all forms of violence. This situation is made use\nof by international aid agencies to promote food trade and aid in our countries\nof their corporations\u2013 a very critical example is of promoting micronutrients\ntherapeutic foods \u2013 essentially controlled by only 7 mega corporations such as\nKraft, General Mills, Campbell Soup, Nestle and others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In order to overcome this situation our recommendations are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
- Implement food sovereignty framework\nfor sustainable agriculture and sustainable development.<\/li>
- Equitable land distribution with emphasis\non land entitlement in women\u2019s names;<\/li>
- Advocate government policies that\nprotect women\u2019s right to land and livestock as well as decent livelihood;<\/li>
- Immediate stop to land-grabbing and\nland evictions in our region;<\/li>
- Promote and implement agroecology;<\/li>
- Protect and promote indigenous seeds\nas well as indigenous livestock;<\/li>
- Promote food crops instead of cash\ncrops;<\/li>
- Advocate food systems based on\nself-reliance and prohibit imperialist policies in food and agriculture.<\/li><\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In order to consider Gender Mainstreaming and Women Empowerment in food and agriculture policies in the region one of course…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4,6,65,14,16,20,21],"tags":[76,48,75,54,79,78,80,74,77],"class_list":["post-1233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-agroecology","category-climate-change","category-farmers","category-food-sovereignty","category-resistance","category-seed-sovereignty","category-women","category-wto","tag-next-generation-agriculture-strategy","tag-agroecology","tag-decent-livelihood","tag-food-sovereignty","tag-ifis","tag-imf","tag-pepsico","tag-sustainable-agriculture","tag-wto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rootsforequity.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rootsforequity.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rootsforequity.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rootsforequity.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rootsforequity.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1233"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/rootsforequity.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1233\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1237,"href":"http:\/\/rootsforequity.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1233\/revisions\/1237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rootsforequity.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rootsforequity.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rootsforequity.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}