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Opinions on Friday, November 6, 2020
Columnist: Alex Danso and Emmanuella Appiah
2020-11-06
Women participate in agricultural activities and in all household activities. Stock Photo
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development presents a transformative vision that recognizes that our world is changing, bringing with it new challenges that must be overcome if we want to live in a world without hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition in any of its forms (FAO, 2019).
The increasing trend of the population and the loss of arable land requires the adoption of measures to ensure adequate food supply to feed the population.
In view of this, the United Nations in its Sustainable Development Goals included food security in its goals and urges individual states to work to achieve food security (UN, 2017).
Food security defines a situation in which all people at all times have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life (World Bank, 2015).
In Ghana, the Ministry of Food and Agriculture defines food safety as the availability of good quality nutritious food that is hygienically packaged, attractively presented, available in sufficient quantities throughout the year, and located in the right place at affordable prices (FASDEP, 2003). Food security has three main components: food availability, food accessibility and food utilization (FANTA, 2018).
Realizing the components of food safety requires close collaboration with farmers around the world. According to (Dorward, 2013), the relationship between agriculture and food security and nutrition has long been recognized and various conceptual frameworks were developed to show the ways in which agriculture is affecting food and nutrition security.
Johnson-Welch et al., (2005) state that farmers are the main food producers in developing countries, increased agricultural production of small farmers means that more food enters the market, leading to higher prices. lower and better diets.
Despite efforts to ensure world food security, the number of hungry people has slowly increased. As a result, more than 820 million people in the world remained hungry in 2018, underscoring the immense challenge of achieving the Zero Hunger goal by 2030.
Hunger is increasing in almost all African subregions, making Africa the region with the highest prevalence of undernutrition, at almost 20 percent (FAO, 2019).
A recent report prepared by (MoFA, 2015) discussed that around 5 percent of Ghana’s population (1.2 million people) are food insecure. The Economic Intelligence Unit (EIU, 2019) in its 2019 Global Food Security Index (GFSI) ranked Ghana 59th out of 133 countries and 3rd in Sub-Saharan Africa. The EIU attributed this impressive performance to the Planting for Food and Jobs Program.
Despite this impressive performance, Ghana can achieve greater food security by paying close attention to rural women farmers.
In the opinion of (IFDAD, 2000), women are the first to worry about food security and household nutrition, acting as producers, processors and consumers.
In Ghana, women participate in agricultural activities, as well as in all household activities, including food preparation, cleaning, childcare, water collection and firewood collection (Drafor, Kunze and AI-Hassan, 2005).
Due to the migration of agricultural workers from the countryside to the city, available labor resources become increasingly scarce and women have to participate in activities that were traditionally dominated by men. As men leave and women stay, rural areas are populated by increasing proportions of women (Drafor, I. et al, 2005).
In its 2012 report, the Montpellier Panel argued that a large number of the poorest, most disadvantaged and marginalized people in sub-Saharan Africa are women and some of the poorest households are headed by women.
However, national agricultural policies often assume that farmers are mostly male. According to FAO, women in some African countries spend up to 60 percent of their time in agricultural activities.
Women farmers contribute up to 50 percent of the work on farms in sub-Saharan Africa. More than 60 percent of employed women in sub-Saharan Africa work in agriculture. Some studies show that women farmers are as productive as men.
A study conducted in the Mossi Plateau of Burkina Faso even found that female labor in agriculture was six times more productive than male labor (IFAD, 2005). Empowering women farmers could help increase food security and improve the livelihoods of Africa’s growing population, which is expected to quadruple in the next 90 years (World Bank, 2014).
It is evident that women are concerned about food security in the sense that they participate in the production, processing and consumption of food. However, in general, women have remained invisible workers in the agricultural sector.
The important participation of women in agricultural work and their extensive economic contribution has not received much recognition. It is in this context that I draw the attention of government, NGOs and other stakeholders, as well as private researchers, to reflect on the possible means available to harness the full potential of rural women farmers to help promote nutrition. safety in Ghana and the world in general.
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