EcoWatch
Facebook 573k Twitter 238k Instagram 37k Subscribe Subscribe
  • Climate
  • Energy
  • Policy
  • Renewables
  • Culture
  • Science
  • Go Solar Today
      • Top Companies By State
        • California Solar Companies
        • Texas Solar Companies
        • New York Solar Companies
        • Florida Solar Companies
        • See All States
      • Top Incentives By State
        • California Solar Incentives
        • Texas Solar Incentives
        • New York Solar Incentives
        • Florida Solar Incentives
        • See All States
      • Solar Panel Costs By State
        • Solar Panel Costs in California
        • Solar Panel Costs in Texas
        • Solar Panel Costs in New York
        • Solar Panel Costs in Florida
        • See All States
      • Value of Solar by State
        • Is Solar Worth It In California?
        • Is Solar Worth It in Texas?
        • Is Solar Worth It New York?
        • Is Solar Worth It In Florida?
        • See All States
      • Company Reviews
        • Tesla Solar Review
        • Sunrun Solar Review
        • SunPower Solar Review
        • Vivint Solar Review
        • See All Companies
      • Common Solar Questions
        • Can You Get Free Solar Panels?
        • Does Solar Increase Home Value?
        • What’re The Best Solar Batteries?
        • Can You Finance Solar?
        • Where To Buy Solar Panels?
        • Payback On Solar Panels?
      • Solar Resources
        • Interactive Solar Calculator
        • Federal Solar Tax Credit 2023
        • Best Solar Panels For Most Homes
        • Tesla Solar Roof Review
        • Cheapest Solar Panels
      • Companies Compared
        • SunPower vs Tesla Solar
        • SunRun vs Tesla Solar
        • SunRun vs SunPower
        • SunPower vs Momentum Solar
        • SunPower vs ADT Solar
EcoWatch
  • Climate
  • Energy
  • Policy
  • Renewables
  • Culture
  • Science
  • Go Solar Today
    • Go Solar Today
    • Top Companies By State
      • California Solar Companies
      • Texas Solar Companies
      • New York Solar Companies
      • Florida Solar Companies
      • See All States
    • Top Incentives By State
      • California Solar Incentives
      • Texas Solar Incentives
      • New York Solar Incentives
      • Florida Solar Incentives
      • See All States
    • Solar Panel Costs By State
      • Solar Panel Costs in California
      • Solar Panel Costs in Texas
      • Solar Panel Costs in New York
      • Solar Panel Costs in Florida
      • See All States
    • Value of Solar by State
      • Is Solar Worth It In California?
      • Is Solar Worth It in Texas?
      • Is Solar Worth It New York?
      • Is Solar Worth It In Florida?
      • See All States
    • Company Reviews
      • Tesla Solar Review
      • Sunrun Solar Review
      • SunPower Solar Review
      • Vivint Solar Review
      • See All Companies
    • Common Solar Questions
      • Can You Get Free Solar Panels?
      • Does Solar Increase Home Value?
      • What’re The Best Solar Batteries?
      • Can You Finance Solar?
      • Where To Buy Solar Panels?
      • Payback On Solar Panels?
    • Solar Resources
      • Interactive Solar Calculator
      • Federal Solar Tax Credit 2023
      • Best Solar Panels For Most Homes
      • Tesla Solar Roof Review
      • Cheapest Solar Panels
    • Companies Compared
      • SunPower vs Tesla Solar
      • SunRun vs Tesla Solar
      • SunRun vs SunPower
      • SunPower vs Momentum Solar
      • SunPower vs ADT Solar

The best of EcoWatch right in your inbox. Sign up for our email newsletter!

    • About EcoWatch
    • Contact EcoWatch
    • Terms of Use
    • Privacy Policy
    • Learn About Solar Energy
    Facebook 573k Twitter 238k Instagram 37k
    EcoWatch
    • About EcoWatch
    • Contact EcoWatch
    • Terms of Use
    • Privacy Policy
    • Learn About Solar Energy
    Facebook 573k Twitter 238k Instagram 37k
    Home Business

    Women Working in Agriculture Suffer Pay Discrimination, More Climate Shocks: FAO Report

    By: Olivia Rosane
    Updated: April 17, 2023
    Edited by Chris McDermott
    Facebook icon Twitter icon Pinterest icon Email icon
    Women farmers plant rice saplings at a paddy field in Assam, India on July 10, 2021. David Talukdar / NurPhoto via Getty Images
    Women farmers plant rice saplings at a paddy field in Assam, India on July 10, 2021. David Talukdar / NurPhoto via Getty Images
    Why you can trust us

    Founded in 2005 as an Ohio-based environmental newspaper, EcoWatch is a digital platform dedicated to publishing quality, science-based content on environmental issues, causes, and solutions.

    Facebook icon Twitter icon Pinterest icon Email icon

    Women who work in agriculture face significant inequalities, and the climate crisis is only making the situation worse.

    That’s the conclusion of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)’s first report in more than a decade focusing on women who work in agrifood systems.

    “Women who work in agricultural production tend to do so under highly unfavourable conditions,” the authors wrote in the report, released Thursday. “They tend to be concentrated in the poorest countries, where alternative livelihoods are not available, and they maintain the intensity of their work in conditions of climate-induced weather shocks and in situations of conflict.” 

    Women play a vital role in our agrifood systems, but their working conditions & economic opportunities are impacted by gender inequalities.

    It's time to make agrifood systems work better for women.

    Read @FAO's new report👉🏼 https://t.co/OoPzxylqLV#LetsGrowEquality pic.twitter.com/yJoFvnULM5

    — Food and Agriculture Organization (@FAO) April 13, 2023

    The report, “The Status of Women in Agrifood Systems,” is much more comprehensive than a similar report from 2011, FAO’s Deputy Director of Inclusive Rural Transformation and Gender Equality Dr. Lauren Phillips, who helped prepare the report, told Carbon Brief. Instead of focusing solely on women in the narrower agricultural field, it looks at women who work in all agrifood systems, which it defines as “the entire range of actors and interlinked activities that add value in agricultural production and related off-farm activities such as food storage, aggregation, post-harvest handling, transportation, processing, distribution, marketing, disposal and consumption.”

    More From EcoWatch
    • The Best Solar Panels for Farming
    • U.S. Low-Income Solar Programs & Incentives
    • What Is Community Solar?

    Agricultural production, on the other hand, refers only to the raising, growing and harvesting of crops, livestock, fisheries and forests. 

    The field is important to many women’s livelihoods, employing 36 percent of all working women as of 2019. In some regions — especially sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia — it provides the bulk of their livelihood, with 66 percent of working women employed in agriculture in the former vs. 60 percent of working men, and 71 percent of working women employed in agriculture in the latter vs. 47 percent of men. 

    Yet women are not treated fairly in the field. 

    Women who work in agriculture make 82 cents for every dollar earned by men, and female farmers produce 24 percent less than male farmers on the same amount of land. 

    There are several reasons why these inequalities persist, including discrimination, strict gender norms, lack of access to land and technology and a disproportionate burden of unpaid care work in the home. But the status quo means that women in agriculture are more vulnerable when extraordinary events like the COVID-19 pandemic or a climate-fueled heat wave occur. 

    Following the pandemic, 22 percent of women working in non-farm agrifood systems lost their jobs compared to just two percent of men, and this meant that women faced 4.3 percent more food insecurity than men in 2021 compared to 1.7 percent more in 2019. When a climate-fueled extreme weather event like a heat wave occurs, women are more likely to continue working through it. 

    “While women are not inherently more at risk from climate change and shocks, resource and other constraints can make them more sensitive to their effects and less able to adapt to them, increasing their vulnerability,” the report authors wrote. 

    When an extreme weather event occurs, women are also less likely to be able to relocate to a more favorable location or access information about the climate crisis or tools to help them adapt. 

    There has been some progress made towards gender parity in agriculture, but more work needs to be done. 

    “There’s been positive change so far that more and more countries acknowledge women in their national policy frameworks around agriculture, but not many of them are necessarily proposing specific and concrete actions,” Phillips told Carbon Brief. 

    Yet boosting equality for women can only help everyone in the long term. The report found that closing both the gender pay gap and farm production gap would raise global Gross Domestic Product by almost $1 trillion as well as bring 45 million people out of food insecurity, reducing total food insecurity by around two percent. 

    “If we tackle the gender inequalities endemic in agrifood systems and empower women, the world will take a leap forward in addressing the goals of ending poverty and creating a world free from hunger,” FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu told UN News.

    The report made three major recommendations for moving forward:

    1. Gather more high-quality gender-based data on women in agrifood systems to guide policy.
    2. Scale up local interventions that directly address gender-based inequality.
    3. Implement policies that specifically work to empower women and reduce gender-based inequalities. 

    This last point is especially important for helping women in agriculture adapt to the climate crisis. 

    “If policies were already responsive, and included women in policy processes, they’re much more likely to help women withstand shocks and to be resilient to shocks when they arrive,” Phillips told Carbon Brief.

    Subscribe to get exclusive updates in our daily newsletter!

      By signing up, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy & to receive electronic communications from EcoWatch Media Group, which may include marketing promotions, advertisements and sponsored content.

      Olivia Rosane

      Olivia Rosane is a freelance writer and reporter with a decade’s worth of experience. She has been contributing to EcoWatch daily since 2018 and has also covered environmental themes for Treehugger, The Trouble, YES! Magazine and Real Life. She holds a Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of Cambridge and a master’s in Art and Politics from Goldsmiths, University of London.
      Facebook icon Twitter icon Pinterest icon Email icon

      Read More

      El Niño and Greenhouse Gas Emissions to Push Global Temps Into ‘Uncharted Territory’ Soon, WMO Warns
      We’re fast approaching the threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius above
      By Cristen Hemingway Jaynes
      Biggest Polluters Linked to Worsening Wildfires in Western U.S. and Canada
      A new report, led by the Union of Concerned Scientists
      By Paige Bennett
      Egg Labels, Decoded
      Faced with a wall of egg cartons at the grocery
      By Linnea Harris

      Subscribe to get exclusive updates in our daily newsletter!

        By signing up, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy & to receive electronic communications from EcoWatch Media Group, which may include marketing promotions, advertisements and sponsored content.

        Latest Articles

        • Excessive Foraging for Wild Mushrooms and Garlic a ‘Risk to Wildlife’ in UK
          by Cristen Hemingway Jaynes
          May 18, 2023
        • El Niño and Greenhouse Gas Emissions to Push Global Temps Into ‘Uncharted Territory’ Soon, WMO Warns
          by Cristen Hemingway Jaynes
          May 17, 2023
        • Biggest Polluters Linked to Worsening Wildfires in Western U.S. and Canada
          by Paige Bennett
          May 17, 2023
        • Urbanization Stresses Wild Bees, but Green Spaces Can Help
          by Cristen Hemingway Jaynes
          May 17, 2023
        • 80% Plastic Pollution Reduction Could be Achieved by 2040: UNEP Report
          by Paige Bennett
          May 16, 2023
        • Egg Labels, Decoded
          by Linnea Harris
          May 16, 2023
        • In Another Blow to Big Oil, U.S. Supreme Court Rejects Effort to Kill Climate Suits
          by Common Dreams
          May 16, 2023
        • Montana Governor Signs Bill Banning State Agencies From Analyzing Climate Impacts
          by Cristen Hemingway Jaynes
          May 16, 2023
        EcoWatch

        The best of EcoWatch right in your inbox. Sign up for our email newsletter!

          • Climate Climate
          • Animals Animals
          • Health + Wellness Health + Wellness
          • Insights + Opinion Insights + Opinion
          • Adventure Adventure
          • Oceans Oceans
          • Business Business
          • Solar Solar
          • About EcoWatch
          • Contact EcoWatch
          • EcoWatch Reviews
          • Terms of Use
          • Privacy Policy
          • Learn About Solar Energy
          • Learn About Deregulated Energy
          • EcoWatch UK
          Follow Us
          Facebook 573k
          Twitter 238k
          Instagram 37k
          Subscribe Subscribe

          Experts for a healthier planet and life.

          Mentioned by:
          Learn more