ICAC discusses women’s role in cotton sector
The fourth open session at the International Cotton Advisory Committee’s (ICAC's) 72nd plenary meeting focused on strategies that can accelerate the ‘feminisation’ of agriculture. Entitled ‘Making Women Visible: Gender Issues in Cotton’, the session focused on the barriers women around the world currently face.
Historically, the cotton industry has focused much of its effort on maximising efficiency, such as increasing yields while minimising chemical usage and water consumption. But in many parts of the world, the role of women has been ignored. Despite this, women account for 70-80% of the available farming workforce in Africa; 50-60% of the available farming workforce in Asia; and 40-45% of the available farming workforce in Latin America.
Some of the barriers women working in the cotton sector face are legal, such as the inability to own land in some countries, and a lack of access to quality inputs and adequate financing. Other challenges are based on traditional gender roles, with men having greater decision-making influence in the field and in terms of how cotton income is spent.
Brigitte Gaedeke, a trader at Germany-based Otto Stadtlander, said: "In the last 19 years, only 14% of graduates at the American Cotton Shippers Association's International Cotton Institute have been women.
"But that number will grow in the future because there are opportunities for women throughout the cotton chain. I don't feel that I have any disadvantages as a woman, and anyone who does simply has an outdated perspective."
Other speakers included Patricia Biermayr-Jenzano, visiting scholar at Georgetown University in Washington, DC; Aselly Mwanza, gender coordinator for the Cotton Association of Zambia; and Luisa Fernanda Melo, manager at Colombia-based Remolino.
The plenary meeting is taking place in Cartagena, Colombia, from September 29 to October 4.
