Statistics show that the output of the land controlled by women
is less than men in the world. However, this does not mean they
are worse; women’s access to resources is not the same as men’s.
Cuba, for example, has 1 million 309 thousand 548 women (43.3
percent of the population) living in rural areas. Many of them
use the land, utilize different types of agricultural
cooperatives or work in state entities. There is enough work in
which, in certain productions, women are superior to men.
FAO General Director Jacque Diouf has demanded for gender
equality in this economically active sector because “it is also
crucial for agricultural development and food security (…) We
must promote gender equality in favor of sustainability and
against hunger and extreme poverty”.
According to statistics, if women had the same access as men in
agriculture, the exploitation of the land could increase from 20
to 30 percent and the agricultural production of the economy
could hike between 2.5 to 4 percent.
It is believed that this would make it possible to cut between
12 to 17 percent the number of hungry people in the planet (some
150 million people). It is believed that there are 925 million
malnourished people, according to UN statistics reported at the
end of 2010.
“We must eliminate all forms of discrimination against women and
assure that access to resources is equitable (…). They must be
seen as equals to sustainable development”, said Diouf.
Women represent 43 percent of the agricultural labor force in
the developing nations: from 20 percent in Latin America to
almost 50 in eastern Asia and Southeastern Asia and Sub Saharan
Africa.
FAO studies reveal that when a rural woman is employed they tend
to receive worse jobs and frequently less stable employment like
temporary labor and in the majority of the cases lower salaries.
In any region of the world women has less access to the land
that their male counterparts. In developing countries the
percentage of women in the context of agricultural labor force
are placed between 20 to 50 percent.
In Cuba’s case, there are just policies that promote gender
equality in particular in the agricultural sector and other
vital sectors of the country’s economy.
