Independent Dialogue
Geographical focus:
India, No borders
Major focus
The Dialogue “DAWN of women in agriculture: technology as an enabler”, coordinated under the Project DAWN (Dairy, Agriculture, Women, Nutrition), a flagship initiative of MoooFarm, aimed at understanding how to empower small-scale women farmers starting from the reach that local projects such as DAWN can have in terms of real-life experience and effects. Women are undisputed actors in the global food system, both in developed and developing countries. However, despite formal data confirming the high rate of the female agricultural labor force, most of them still remain invisible workers in
... Read more the eye of UN Agencies and the broader society. The reference is to female farmers, breeders, and fisherwomen who work informally, without being contractually employed, without receiving adequate compensation, or with extremely limited access to agricultural resources, improved seed varieties, equipment, information, education, credit, insurance, technologies compared to men. Gender inequality in agriculture remains one of the more significant areas of gender disparity worldwide and this phenomenon hits the North and the South of the globe, making it an urgent challenge to face. For this reason, the dialogue spotlighted the role of technologies as an enabling tool to ensure food security and food justice, through more effective forms of inclusion, equal productive employment, and decent work for all actors along the food value chain. The Dialogue started from on-ground assumptions of the Indian context but looked at global solutions. Through this two-way approach, it is possible to make the global food system more resilient and adaptive, starting from the urgency of leaving no one behind, for the sake of female farm returns and the broader agricultural production that, especially in developing countries, massively rely on the female role. From the observation of the current system failures and evidence we identified six sub-topics to be addressed during the Discussion Groups: 1. Women often remain excluded from information access, decision-making processes, and governance structures of dairy value chains. - How might technology enable women in agriculture to be included in the decision-making process for their family thus ensuring equal representation and overall progress for the family? 2. Women’s agricultural productivity and yields are 20 percent to 30 percent lower than men’s because of well-documented constraints such as restricted access to quality seeds, equipment, hired labor, technology, training, and markets. In addition, less than 5% of women own a cow in India. - How might technology enable women to own farm resources, thus boosting their agricultural productivity and profitability? 3. In low and middle-income countries, over 1.7 billion women do not own mobile phones. In cases where they do, they are less likely to make full use of their full suite of services. Although the use of mobile internet is increasing throughout India, only 28% of the rural internet users are women. - How might we enable women in agriculture to achieve digital literacy to help them utilize technology to its maximum potential thus making them independent? 4. Digitalization helps to connect women with advisory services, potentially removing middlemen or reducing labor burdens, providing market or legal information, and enabling financial transactions. - How might technology enable women in agriculture to break down market barriers(like access and financial advisory) thus encouraging local food systems? 5. In India 75 million women are engaged in the dairy sector, compared to 15 million men. Giving them access to technology has been proved to bring financial benefits in terms of income. - What would 2030 look like if ALL women small-scale dairy farmers have access to technology? 6. Gender inequality undermines progress toward sustainable agricultural development across multiple dimensions. - How might we enable women to be catalyzers of sustainable practices in agriculture and achieve increased carbon sequestration and neutrality? Read less
Action Track(s): 4
Keywords: Environment and Climate, Finance, Innovation, Policy, Women & Youth Empowerment