Gender Learning 2021 - How to Support Women Farmers: Evidence and Operational Examples

Relative to their male counterparts, female farmers face disproportionate barriers hindering their productivity and incomes, such as weaker land rights and poorer access to labor and non-labor inputs. Around the world, women are farmers – whether they are responsible for managing small garden plots for family food security or commercial agriculture and value-added products (dairy, processed horticulture, honey, etc.) - but few if any governments provide tailored programs for women farmers, and many governments fail to see women in agriculture as farmers. In sub-Saharan Africa, for example, it is estimated that more than 60 percent of all employed women work in agriculture and that women supply about 40 percent of total agricultural labor. Yet relative to their male counterparts, female farmers face disproportionate barriers hindering their productivity and incomes, such as weaker land rights and poorer access to labor and non-labor inputs, as well as information and finance, and they can be subject to social norms discouraging their participation in agricultural markets. Understanding the specific impediments women farmers face is necessary, but a more holistic approach that focuses on the Food System as a whole would enhance women farmer’s abilities to benefit from government support and could lead to greater food and nutritional security, reducing poverty, and substantial gains in GDP. This learning session presents the following: 1. A presentation by IFPRI on their latest research and evidence on the nexus of women’s land rights and agriculture. 2. Results from the recent publication “Gender inclusion in productive investments in the Western Balkans” and knowledge about approaches to closing gender gaps in the agriculture sector. Shedding light on the participation of females in calls for productive, agro-environmental, and sustainable land management grants in agriculture and forestry in the Western Balkans. 3. Results from a recent impact evaluation in Mozambique conducted by the Africa Gender Innovation Lab showing how a psychology-based personal initiative training (teaching a self-starting, future-oriented, and persistent proactive mindset) implemented on top of an agricultural extension intervention helped women farmers increase their agricultural outputs and engage in profitable off-farm businesses. 4. Initial results from an ongoing World Bank study on land policies affecting the agriculture sector in India highlighting (i) the ways in which women farmers are disadvantaged in their access to secure land tenure and agricultural services and (ii) promising approaches for strengthening women’s land rights and access to agricultural services. 5. From IFC - a discussion on enabling greater financial inclusion of women in agricultural supply chains, how to map and understand the role of women and customize financial services and solutions to fit their needs, and make the business case to financial institutions on tapping into this underserved, and in some cases entirely unserved, market segment.