By Rita R. Robison
Today is International Women’s Day, a global celebration and recognition of women’s achievements.
Women are a powerful force in the fight against global hunger and poverty, especially in agriculture, the World Watch Institute, a research organization that works on energy, resource, and environmental issues, said in a statement.
Worldwide about 1.6 billion women rely on farming for their livelihoods, and female farmers produce more than half of the world’s food.
However, women farmers face obstacles such as access to information technology and the inability to connect rural businesses to banks, according to the institute.
Institute researchers traveled to 25 countries in sub-Saharan Africa and found innovations that are helping women get access to credit, improve their incomes, feed their families, introduce sustainable crops to markets, and reduce rural poverty. They include:
- Creating links between women producers and markets.
- Educating girls on family planning.
- Empowering young girls through agriculture.
- Extension services.
- Female trade unions.
- Increasing access to water.
- Microfinance credit.
- Vertical farming, growing food in cities in dirt sacks.
- Urban farming.
- Women’s collectives.
- Women-run community seed banks.
To learn more, see the institute’s report “State of the World 2011: Innovations That Nourish the Planet.”
For more information for boomer consumers, see my blog The Survive and Thrive Boomer Guide.