There are two moments we need to recognize today. First is the International Day of Rural Women, a day that acknowledges the contributions of rural women worldwide to their communities, economies and families. Second is the third annual Blog Action Day, uniting bloggers around the world to promote key issues of social change. This year, the topic at hand is climate change.
Many of MADRE’s environmental justice projects with community-based women’s organizations worldwide have been situated in the overlap between these two issues. Our work with our sister organizations has not only recognized that women disproportionately feel the impacts of climate change, such as mounting food insecurity and intensifying natural disasters. We have also emphasized this crucial fact: women have the solutions.
Women make up the majority of small-scale farmers worldwide and possess invaluable expertise in sustainable means of local food production. More and more, people are recognizing the grave danger presented by the current food system’s reliance upon industrial agriculture. Estimates compiled by GRAIN show that the links in the chain of industrial agriculture—including chemical fertilizers, destruction of natural biodiversity, transportation, processing, storage, and more—are responsible for nearly half of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.
The system is not working. According to the World Food Program, over one billion people do not have enough to eat—more than the populations of the US, Canada and the European Union. Some three-quarters of those one billion people are themselves farmers and farm workers.
Meanwhile, the majority of both groups are women. More than 60% of chronically hungry people are women, and in many places worldwide, women make up the bulk of the farming population. In Africa, women produce between 60% and 80% of food.
The video above mentions that world leaders will be gathering in December in Copenhagen to discuss answers to climate change. Some might suggest that there are few alternatives available right now. But the alternatives are out there. In Guatemala, Indigenous Ixil women established small chicken and pig farms that generate income and promote food security. In Nicaragua, Indigenous Miskita women have organized a seed bank to cultivate, save, and share local, organic seeds. And in Sudan, women organic farmers have organized into a union to gain access to better tools and resources.
For more information about women, sustainable agriculture and climate change, click here.
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