Future Food Institute & MoooFarm for the United Nations Food Systems Summit

Women play a crucial role in agriculture, especially in rural areas and least developed countries. It is a pivotal function encapsulated in a predominant female involvement in the sector: without mentioning informal agriculture, in countries like Pakistan, Tanzania, The Gambia, Sri Lanka, Nepal, India, and Turkey the percentage of women employed in the primary sector can even exceed 80%.

Livestock is possibly the most common asset among rural women in developing countries as animals are more easily acquired – e.g. through inheritance or markets – than land and other physical and financial assets. Dairy often serves as the first stepping-stone for rural women to start consolidating a better place for themselves in the society, especially in rural areas.

Despite the fact that women do most of the work in animal husbandry yet their contribution has largely been ignored and inadequately acknowledged. They always remain invisible workers (<3% have access to technology for livestock management). They also often remain excluded from information access, decision-making processes and governance structures of dairy value chains. Their role is rarely associated with equal access to agricultural resources, technologies, finance, training, digital literacy, or salary when compared with men’s activities. As a consequence, women in agriculture are more exposed to less-mechanised labor-intensive activities, health hazards, and, especially after the covid pandemic, more isolated and marginalized from information and markets, due to multiple lockdowns.

Empowering women in agriculture and eliminating the current gender gap is fundamental, not only to increase female farm returns (by 20-30 percent according to UN Women), but also to boost agricultural production in developing countries, tackling the serious issue of undernourishment.

It is within this context that the Future Food Institute, in collaboration with MoooFarm, are organizing a UN Food Systems Summit Independent Dialogue on the role of women in agriculture, scheduled on July 2nd at 8:00 — 10:00 am CEST.

In particular, the dialogue will be coordinated under the Project DAWN (Dairy, Agriculture, Women, Nutrition), a flagship initiative of MoooFarm, focused on empowering of small-scale women dairy farmers by adopting a ‘hybrid’ approach with technology and active field engagement, to make small-scale dairy farming more inclusive, sustainable, efficient, and nutritious.

Holistic interventions are crucial.  Linking small-scale female farmers and producers with technologies, finance and markets is fundamental to build climate-resilient food systems, increase yields, enhance food quality and safety, and put agriculture within the planetary boundaries.

Technologies, when respectful of the peculiarities of specific contexts and traditions, can be decisive enablers for a more just, equal, and sustainable food system.

Dialogue focus

The dialogue will investigate the role of technology in enabling and empowering women in agriculture. Technology as a tool for guaranteeing equal female access to improved and sustainable agriculture segments and practices. Future Food Institute and MoooFarm are bringing together impactful thinkers and doers around the table to propose pathways towards

• Bridging the gender gaps in agricultural technology.
• Better understanding the positive impacts of women-run agripreneurship.
• Increased education and awareness for guaranteeing access to technology for women.

The plenary session will be live-streamed on Future Food Institute Facebook page at this link. Please, pre-register for the event here.

Would you like your voice to be heard and join the Dialogue? Contact the convenor!