• According to the UN, in 2020, some 2.37 billion people did not have access to adequate food.
• This is an increase of almost 20 per cent in just one year, where those most affected were rural women and girls.
Food systems across the world depend on the daily work of rural women, yet they often have less access to what to eat, the UN has said.
The United Nations Women agency has said women play essential roles in raising crops and processing their harvest, preparing food and distributing their products, including ensuring that both their families and communities are nourished.
“Yet paradoxically those same women often have less access to food and a higher risk of hunger, malnutrition, undernutrition and food insecurity than their male counterparts,” the agency said.
The UN attributed the disconnect to unequal power relations and discriminatory gender norms. For example, resulting in women eating last and least in the household as well as their disproportionate responsibility for unpaid caregiving and domestic work.
And as the world marked the International Rural Women Day on October 15, the UN called for a commitment to supporting rural women to benefit equally from their productivity, with good food enjoyed by all.
This year’s IDRW was marked under the theme, Cultivating Good Food for All.
Anne Maina from the Biodiversity and Biosafety Association of Kenya (BIBA-K) said there is need to celebrate the resilient mothers and grandmothers who have kept families well fed even with the current Covid-19 pandemic.
“Women and girls play a critical role in deciding what food is consumed and ensuring nutritional requirements are met. However, loss of income due to the current pandemic, the current drought has led to bigger challenges in access to proper nutrition,” Maina said.
She said the government should focus on transforming food systems by pushing diversification and supporting farmers with access to irrigation facilities to produce food all year round.
Pauline Kariuki the director, Rural Women Network has been a champion of rural women family farmers said it is not enough for women to sit as passive listeners at the decision-making table. They should participate and engage, she said.
The network is a platform for rural women smallholder farmers with the main focus being poverty alleviation through agriculture production, food and nutrition security, climate-smart and conservation agriculture among others.
“This will translate on paper to action by not leaving rural women and youth behind. We are champions of SDGs 1,2,3,5 and 13 which include poverty reduction, zero hunger, good health and well-being, gender equality and climate action,” Kariuki said.
Kariuki who is also a board member of the Kenya National Farmer’s Federation (KENAFF) said they are building the women’s capacity in climate-smart and conservation agriculture.
“Communities will require the local leadership for the coordination of actions and promotion of collaborative arrangements with the government and other institutions and not work in silos. It is important to boost the adaptive capacity of grassroots women to overcome challenges ranging from lack of information, finances and support for their resilience capacity,” she said.