A UN report on the state of world biodiversity for food and agriculture links rising food insecurity and chronic hunger to threatened habitats and ecosystems. But traditional female stewards of biodiversity offer hope.
Zimbabwean farmer Miriam Cikenzi works hard to grow groundnuts, one crop that still flourishes in the red clay soils of a region ravaged by climate change-induced drought.
And while she’s happy to also make peanut butter from the crop grown to feed her family, Cikenzi hopes any excess can be sold to help fund her children’s education.
Women farmers in Zimbabwe have an intimate relationship with local seeds and plants that help to maintain biodiversity and bolster food security as the maize staple becomes increasingly vulnerable to recurring drought.
Yet female farmers remain marginalized from land ownership, quality soil and access to capital, and their work often goes unacknowledged.
“They couldn’t even look at me in the eye,” Gigi Manicad, the senior advisor of Oxfam’s “Sowing Diversity = Harvesting Security” seed program, told DW of first working with some of these women a decade ago.
But when Manicad recently saw these farmers being photographed as part of her program, something had changed: “I saw another part of them which I didn’t recognize before.”
Women who long saw themselves as “poor and insignificant” were now realizing, having been embraced as custodians of biodiversity for more sustainable food production, that they made a valuable contribution to “household security and community security,” Manicad said.
“This gives them confidence that they matter.”
50 percent of world’s farmers are female
Women account for around half the agricultural labor force across much of the developing world, most especially in sub-Saharan Africa. These farmers, livestock keepers, fishers and forest managers are vital to promoting biodiversity for food and agriculture, says a landmark study by the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) released this week.
Five years in the making, “The State of the World’s Biodiversity for Food and Agriculture” report is derived from the input of 91 countries on the status of biodiverse and sustainable food and agriculture systems that are undergoing a concerning decline. Biodiversity refers to the variety of living organisms whose interplay underpins life and ecosystems on earth.
Under threat are species that perform “vital ecosystem services,” such as pollinators, pest enemies, soil organisms and wild food species. The report links this trend to multiple factors like rapid urbanization, over-exploitation of land and ocean resources and climate change.
Custodians of biodiversity for food and agriculture
Many of the countries and organizations that contributed to the survey showed how women in the developing world have long been custodians of sustainable traditional agricultural practices that maintain biodiversity.