Global forum on food security and nutrition

Zhanhuan Shang, School of Life Sciences, Lanzhou University, China

Suggestions for Transforming gender relations in agriculture through women’s empowerment: benefits, challenges and trade-offs for improving nutrition outcomes

Prof. Zhanhuan Shang,

School of Life Science, Lanzhou University, Gansu province, 730000, China,

My suggestions for exploring more way to make more benefit to improve women's nutrition, is that 1) make the special part of financial benefit from carbon trade by country government, FAO, UNEP or others organization, that because women make more contribution for carbon sequestration and maintain carbon balance in the rural area, which need more business accounting of gender's contribution of carbon management in the world. 2) We should make special department or organization to carry the special carbon fund for women's carbon compensation from carbon trade-off in worldwide. 3) A Collaborative project worldwide should be planned to survey the gender's contribution for carbon management to make the women's benefit involve into carbon business.

--
尚占环 教授/博士
单位：兰州大学生命科学学院
地址：甘肃省兰州市天水南路222号，兰州大学盘旋路校区逸夫生物楼708室，兰州，730000。

 

Prof. Dr. Zhanhuan Shang

Department: School of Life Sciences, Lanzhou University, China.

Address: Room 708, Yifu Biology Building, No. 222, Tianshui South Road of Lanzhou City, Gansu Province, 730000, China.

Attached document “Role of Tibetan Women in Carbon Balance in the Alpine Grasslands of the Tibetan Plateau. A Review” in Annex 3

Nigel Poole, facilitator of the discussion, University of London and LANSA, United Kingdon

I was excited to see the two contributions concerning Afghanistan and poultry production for women. They seem to present contrasting experiences, so it would be good to hear more:

Comment to Paul Rigterink: it seems that the first stage of your proposal was implemented. How successful was it? Can you comment further?

Secondly, I am more intrigued by the failure in implementation of the subsequent large-scale proposals. Can you say why the ideas were not carried forward? Lots of other questions spring to mind about such initiatives:

• 
  Who were the women targeted?
  
• 
  What level of resources was given, and was lack of resources a reason for not adopting the large-scale production initiative?
  
• 
  What level of complementary services and training was provided?
  
• 
  Were markets for poultry products easily accessible?
  
• 
  Did policy makers have other priorities?
  

And fundamentally, did the concept transfer well from Africa to Afghanistan? I have conducted some policy research among food system stakeholders in different parts of Afghanistan and found that they are aware of the importance of considering ideas from other countries, but that projects cannot easily be copied from countries where the contexts differ.

Thanks also to Mohammad Jafar Emal for sharing your article on backyard poultry production. I was impressed that poultry production was seen as one element of an agricultural growth strategy, and not the only solution; and then, that income gained was reinvested in other economic enterprises and thus multiplied among individuals, households and in the local economy – at least to some extent.

In the introduction you have pointed out important technical factors which make poultry production a suitable enterprise. What do you think, Paul?

Can I ask another couple of questions: was location near to Mazar an important factor for success in Balkh? How successful was the project in Jauzjan and more remote areas?

And more importantly for this forum, please can you explain in greater detail about the level of control that the women beneficiaries had over production, marketing and reinvestment of the income?

Are there any other experiences out there that will help us to understand more about the potential and limitations for poultry production among women?

Many thanks

Brad Wilson, United States of America

80% of the "undernourished" are rural, (as is 70% of LDC population,) from the rural half of the world, and in many places about half of them are farmers. So paying farmers fairly is a key to family farms, to support for all family members, and keeping them together as a family. What we've had instead are global farmers subsidizing everyone else.

In many places, cheap crop prices are also driving down livestock prices, (a huge part of global farm income, especially for the poor,) as livestock leave farms to giant animal factories, that are subsidized by farmers, (by cheap feed prices). So this hurts resource conserving crop rotations and contributes to climate change.

In these ways, global farmers are colonized by "megatechnic" (Lewis Mumford, The Myth of the Machine,) agribusiness. Through cheap prices farmers are forced to subsidize the agribusinesses that exploit them. The corporate and political issues, where global farmers are exploited, must be considered as context for these women's issues. Unfortunately, most countries are weak in global agriculture, and can't have much impact on prices.

Free markets (neoliberalism) chronically fail for farm products, so that's the economic problem. It can be fixed politically with supply management and adequate ("living wage") minimum Price Floors, as has been advocated by the WTO Africa Group (https://zcomm.org/zblogs/wto-africa-group-with-nffc-not-ewg-by-brad-wilson/), La Via Campesina (https://zcomm.org/zblogs/via-campesina-with-nffc-support-for-fair-farm-p...), European leaders (https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/impact-of-gatt-on-world-hunger-by-mark-rit...) and in the US (as in the first two links in this sentence). In global supply management, supply reductions are needed, (even as reserve supplies are maintained, to be triggered by Price Ceilings). At the same time, many regions, such as Africa, need a larger share of global production, (greater yields and production). Fair prices can go a long way in making that happen. Fair trade agreements are also needed, not free trade, (as the latter is based upon the free markets that chronically fail for farmers).

Women's issues need to be brought together with these larger issues, this larger economic and political context. We see some of that with the women who have won the Food Sovereignty Prize (http://foodsovereigntyprize.org/fs-prize/). In the West, the women of #FarmJustice (https://zcomm.org/zblogs/the-women-of-farm-justice-forgotten-by-women-to...), including minority women, (https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/ensure-that-farmers-receive-a-fair-living-...) have been leaders in this.

US farm justice advocates like these women have played a "unique" role in this, because the US has had such a dominant share of major global exports. The US too has been colonized by global mega-agribusiness, and has chosen to lose money on farm exports for decades. Agribusiness lobbying led Congress to reduce (1953-1995) and eliminate (1996-2018) Price Floor programs. Previously, 1942-1952, corn prices averaged over $12/bushel, wheat over $16/bu, cotton over $2.50/lb, etc. In the 21st century, due to the policy changes, prices have been close to a third of that.

The US and Europe need fair prices, (with supply management fairly shared globally) to eliminate the need for any subsidies, as subsidies are unfair.

Changes need to be transitional, as it takes time for global rural economies to adjust to the greatly increased wealth of a fair standard. Global farmers need to be protected from land grabbing and other abuses in the process, especially women, as in the article. 60 years of cheap prices have created savage dilemmas that are very difficult to fix. It's like the refugee crisis from the Middle East. So much was done by Europe and the US to cause the problems over such a long period that it's tough to fix, as the problems explode in new ways.

Bottom line, Global rural women and their families deserve to be paid fairly. The problem of global corporate megamachines, of the colonization of global agriculture, must be addressed to achieve this.