Women ownership needed in agriculture

ELLANIE SMITWINDHOEKAlthough 46% of women are employed in the agriculture sector, they do not have ownership in the sector, with outdated approaches still leaning towards male preference.This came out during a panel discussion on the role of women in agriculture.Agriculture minister Calle Schlettwein said that demographically 51.4% of the population in Namibia are women.“Now if you reflect that statistical fact and compare it to the number of women that we have been resettled on farms, we are underperforming, because only 37% of women form part of being resettled in non-group schemes.”He said although women form 46% of those that are employed in agriculture, most of them are employed on subsistence level.“The problem that we have in our society is that women are not owning the means of production, nor do they own the production itself.”Schlettwein said that women are involved in the sector as labourers, sometimes under very bad conditions.“I believe the big issue that we have to address if we truly want to empower women is to make policies where they acquire wealth through owning the means of production and owning their fair share of production. So, there is a long road ahead of us.“If you therefore want to talk about the role of women in agriculture, do not only talk about how many are working in the sector, talk about how many own the sector.”Schlettwein further said that they do have programmes targeting women that encourage them to get involved in agriculture.He however said that as much as this is helpful, they sit with a challenge where outdated, westernised approaches, be it in the financial sector or in the agriculture sector, perpetuate preference for male participation.“In a commercial setting, south of the veterinary cordon fence, how many women own the farm, own the cattle, own the business? The statistics are not clear, but the hunch is and it is an informed hunch, is that it is seriously biased towards the male population. The same is unfortunately true north of the veterinary cordon fence.”Systematic changeHe said policies should therefore not only stop at incentivising women to participate in programmes, but aim at behavioural change and systematic change.Schlettwein further stressed that transformation of the economy needs to be done to bring effective and accelerated change in ownership.“If you have not distributed the wealth in the agricultural sector equally, you have not succeeded in reform and wealth is measured in how much assets you own, not how much income you derive from it only, but both.”JobsDaisry Mathias, the presidential advisor on youth matters and enterprise development, said agriculture is one of the employment-creating sectors in the country.“Over the last seven years the primary industry has contributed about 16% to GDP and of that contribution about 7% was directly from agriculture.”She added that 23% of the jobs that Namibia has in its economy comes directly from agriculture.She therefore noted that in terms of opportunities, agriculture is a sector for employment creation, where a lot of young people and women can obtain expertise and skills and also where they are primarily involved at a communal level in Namibia.She also pointed out that capital and access to land is some of the main factors of production.“The challenge that we have is that many women although they are organised in cooperatives in rural areas are unable to access capital in order for them to access land, because of the collateralised nature of agricultural finance.”She however added that a lot of work has been done in financing agriculture to provide opportunities for women.Subsistence levelHelvi Shindume, founder of Women in Agriculture Namibia, said that women account for about 59% of both skilled and subsistence agricultural work.“Now although the sector is dominated by a male workforce, women produce at a subsistence level, which is not at all sufficient for our country.”She said that there is an opportunity to grow women to not only produce for subsistence, but also on a much more commercial level, so that they can earn an income and contribute to Namibia’s GDP.

Women ownership needed in agriculture

Comments

Namibian Sun 2025-02-19

Please login to leave a comment

Women ownership needed in agriculture

Comments

Namibian Sun 2025-02-19

Please login to leave a comment

Login