Globally, the face of the farmer has been changing over the past 30 years to reflect rural demographics and evolving gender and generational dynamics. In Sri Lanka too, while women increasingly play a key role in household food security, they have less access to productive resources, capital, and fewer opportunities to apply their skills and knowledge.
The European Union-funded Technical Assistance to the Modernisation of Agriculture Programme (TAMAP), in collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and Centre for Women’s Research (CENWOR), organised a symposium titled ‘Supporting Agricultural Productivity through Gender Inclusion’ to commemorate International Women’s Day 2020.
At the event, participants were able to exchange views on the growing need to recognise the often invisible or under-valued roles women play in agricultural development.
Importantly, the conclusions of the event are to be used towards the strategy that is being developed collaboratively by the Ministry of Agriculture and TAMAP, in line with the new Overarching Agricultural Policy Framework.
Based on the presentation, ‘Rural Sri Lanka, an Enabling Context for Gender Equality’ delivered by Asumptha Jayaratnam, FAO, the Sri Lanka Labour Force Survey, 4th Quarter 2018, states that of the four million rural households, around 19-23% are headed by females, and among the contributing family workers of those engaged in farming activities, unpaid family members account for 78.9%.
“We are talking about women being pushed back into very traditional roles – where men take the role of guardian or the state takes on the role of safeguarding women,” said Jayaratnam.
“Women are often excluded from market opportunities and the benefits of cash crop production as they spend more time engaged in household activities. When it comes to their productive role, due to excessive workloads, they do not have time. Unequal distribution of care and domestic work leading to time and mobility constraints result in women’s roles being concentrated in low skilled, low paid nodes of the chain,” she noted.
Due to the technology divide in agriculture it is recommended that women need to be introduced to high level machinery where all should have a role. Additionally, analysis indicated that women’s limited ownership of land and access to control resources has proved a severe deterrent to them from being engaged. According to Jayaratnam, “Regulations and legalities in terms of land ownership is gender biased and favours men.”
While it is imperative that development partners should concentrate on supporting organisations that combine men and women, Jayaratnam noted, “Gender is a concept unknown to all who were met and therefore not fully understood. We really do need to change the mindset of people to ensure gender inclusion.”
Statistics reveal that the total share of women engaged in employment is 37%. However, the work of many of these women is neither registered nor recognised.
According to Dr Kala Pieris, Director CENWOR, the recent study on ‘Gender Equitable Agricultural Policies’ conducted by the organisation looked at ways in which both women and men together can promote agricultural productivity and rural transformation.
Three broad areas, namely, the representation of women and men in agriculture, the impact of gender on agricultural productivity with women and men playing different roles and the influence of gender relationships in agriculture on rural transformation, were analysed in diverse agricultural sectors.
The Gender in Agricultural Policies (GAPo) tool was used to capture realities and insights, in terms of examining the gender gaps and being able to identify necessary policy solutions.
Overall the findings indicated gender-blindness of sectoral policies where gender has not been integrated into national agricultural and natural resource policies.
“You need to have that political will and understanding to cut across the organisational hierarchy in policies, as there was nothing much about gender. However, there are certain strategies at the ground and community level where community based organisations talk about the representation of women at managerial decision making levels,” Dr Pieris noted.
“A systematic approach to integrate gender concerns in policy is important, especially when talking about women’s representation in sectors. It is vital to implement practical and strategic needs of the women in that particular sector when amending policies or when introducing new policies,” she added.
Emphasising that leadership, capacity, and technology transfer are means of empowering women in agriculture, she recommended that it should be included in policies.
The symposium also presented key findings of the study ‘Gender Responsiveness of 2018 Agriculture Sector Budget’ commissioned by the European Union. The budgets of the Ministry of Agriculture, Department of Agriculture (DoA) and Department of Agrarian Development were taken into account.
Presenting the findings, Sriyani Perera, Consultant/Gender Specialist, EU, said, “The agriculture sector is very complex with so many sub sectors and institutions.”
The main objectives of the analysis were to understand gender responsiveness of the current practices in agriculture sector planning and budgeting. Perera noted that the findings indicate, “Women have an access issue and also an acceptance issue. Acceptance of females as farmers is an issue in this country. Those were the major gender gaps that were witnessed.”
Based on the data of the three organisations, Perera said, “When you look at the statistics of all the three entities, the higher you go – the salary, prospects, tours, the power, it is a power game where the males are up there.”
She explained further, “In the women specific and gender responsive allocations of the DoA, the total capital budget of 2018 – the total departmental budget – what you do not see is women specific and gender responsive allocations. From a women specific allocation and gender responsive allocation to where gender neutral allocations it can be termed gender blind.”
Among the key findings of the study, she noted, “Within all three entities no institutional mechanisms exist for gender mainstreaming and gender responsive budgeting. They can be made gender responsive if they were more strategic.”
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