Women's roles in agriculture in Afghanistan have been shaped by the cultural landscape of the country. Women comprise nearly half of the farming and agricultural workforce in Afghanistan.[ citation needed ] In recent years, women have been contributing to farm work and be earning money or barter goods for their contributions.
Like the Amish in the United States, Afghan men traditionally dominated farming in Afghanistan while their women were occasionally used to help work fields or tend livestock. [1] Seed production has also traditionally been done primarily by male farmers in Afghanistan. [2]
Women have lower land rights in Afghanistan, though the Constitution can be interpreted to allow women to own land and Islam's Sharia law has provisions for widows and daughters to inherit a share of land. [3] Women who own or manage land in some parts of the country are unable to sell it, and the land is passed down through inheritance. [4] Many women have also traditionally been restricted in their movements and are often unable to travel outside of their villages. [5]
Today, women make up almost half of the agricultural workforce, though, in many rural areas, they are still marginalized. [6] Women's contributions to agriculture in Afghanistan are often "meagerly rewarded." [7] Women have a high rate of contribution to opium, livestock , and dairy products, but rarely receive payment. [8] Yet women's participation in agriculture is often considered "key, not only to ensuring increased agricultural production but also for improving food and nutrition security." [9] Women are "a force for stability in their communities." [10] They are also seen as agents of change in their households. [11]
Women have been instrumental in organizing small village farm unions in Afghanistan in recent years. [12] Women's work with the farming unions has also raised their status in the areas they live in, where they are no longer known as wives and mothers of men, but instead by their roles in the union. [12] In addition, women have helped introduce new types of crops to the areas they are farming such as cabbage, cauliflower, tomatoes , and beans which compete better on the market. [12]
In Parwan-Bastan, women have had the opportunity to become involved in producing seeds and have created "village-based seed enterprises." [2] Outside of Kabul, farmer training programs for women have been implemented since 2009. [13] These programs allow women to earn their own money and achieve financial Independence. [13]
Non-governmental organizations (NGOs), such as Global Partnership for Afghanistan (GPFA), have helped women become more involved in farming. [14] Such initiatives have helped revitalize orchards, constructed cold-storage facilities and, provided their products and sources. [7] Another program that has helped women with their agricultural business is the National Solidarity Program (NSP) which was developed by the Afghanistan Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development in 2003. [1] NSP provides agricultural resources to women, which may include a grant of chickens, tax breaks, and marketing for their businesses. [1]
Some Afghan women face difficulties selling their product because of their gender. One woman from Baghlan province described her own experience: "It really irritates me when I meet shopkeepers to talk about selling my fruit and they tell me, 'Go and send a man from your family because you are a woman.'" [1]
Organic farming is an agricultural system that uses fertilizers of organic origin such as compost manure, green manure, and bone meal and places emphasis on techniques such as crop rotation and companion planting. It originated early in the 20th century in reaction to rapidly changing farming practices. Certified organic agriculture accounts for 70 million hectares globally, with over half of that total in Australia. Organic farming continues to be developed by various organizations today. Biological pest control, mixed cropping and the fostering of insect predators are encouraged. Organic standards are designed to allow the use of naturally-occurring substances while prohibiting or strictly limiting synthetic substances. For instance, naturally-occurring pesticides such as pyrethrin and rotenone are permitted, while synthetic fertilizers and pesticides are generally prohibited. Synthetic substances that are allowed include, for example, copper sulfate, elemental sulfur and Ivermectin. Genetically modified organisms, nanomaterials, human sewage sludge, plant growth regulators, hormones, and antibiotic use in livestock husbandry are prohibited. Organic farming advocates claim advantages in sustainability, openness, self-sufficiency, autonomy and independence, health, food security, and food safety.
Agriculture is a major industry in the United States, which is a net exporter of food. As of the 2017 census of agriculture, there were 2.04 million farms, covering an area of 900 million acres (1,400,000 sq mi), an average of 441 acres per farm.
Land reform in Zimbabwe officially began in 1980 with the signing of the Lancaster House Agreement, as an effort to more equitably distribute land between black subsistence farmers and white Zimbabweans of European ancestry, who had traditionally enjoyed superior political and economic status. The programme's stated targets were intended to alter the ethnic balance of land ownership.
Mercy Corps is a global non-governmental, humanitarian aid organization operating in transitional contexts that have undergone, or have been undergoing, various forms of economic, environmental, social and political instabilities. The organization claims to have assisted more than 220 million people survive humanitarian conflicts, seek improvements in livelihoods, and deliver durable development to their communities. In 2019, senior staff resigned following public disclosure of the organization's longtime inaction over its co-founder's sexual abuse of his daughter.
Urban agriculture,urban farming, or urban gardening is the practice of cultivating, processing, and distributing food in or around urban areas. Urban agriculture is also the term used for animal husbandry, aquaculture, urban beekeeping, and horticulture. These activities occur in peri-urban areas as well. Peri-urban agriculture may have different characteristics.
Agribusiness refers to the enterprises, the industry, the system, and the field of study of the interrelated and interdependent value chains in agriculture and bio-economy. The primary goal of agribusiness is to maximize profit while sustainably satisfying the needs of consumers for products related to natural resources such as biotechnology, farms, food, forestry, fisheries, fuel, and fiber — usually with the exclusion of non-renewable resources such as mining.
Danish Committee for Aid to Afghan Refugees (DACAAR)(Danish: Den danske komité for hjælp til afghanske flygtninge) is a non-political, non-governmental, non-profit humanitarian and development organization working to improve the lives of the Afghan people since 1984.
Poverty reduction, poverty relief, or poverty alleviation, is a set of measures, both economic and humanitarian, that are intended to permanently lift people out of poverty.
A smallholding or smallholder is a small farm operating under a small-scale agriculture model. Definitions vary widely for what constitutes a smallholder or small-scale farm, including factors such as size, food production technique or technology, involvement of family in labor and economic impact. Smallholdings are usually farms supporting a single family with a mixture of cash crops and subsistence farming. As a country becomes more affluent, smallholdings may not be self-sufficient, but may be valued for the rural lifestyle. As the sustainable food and local food movements grow in affluent countries, some of these smallholdings are gaining increased economic viability. There are an estimated 500 million smallholder farms in developing countries of the world alone, supporting almost two billion people.
Afghanistan has long had a history of opium poppy cultivation and harvest. As of 2021, Afghanistan's harvest produces more than 90% of illicit heroin globally, and more than 95% of the European supply. More land is used for opium in Afghanistan than is used for coca cultivation in Latin America. The country has been the world's leading illicit drug producer since 2001. In 2007, 93% of the non-pharmaceutical-grade opiates on the world market originated in Afghanistan. By 2019 Afghanistan still produced about 84% of the world market. This amounts to an export value of about US$4 billion, with a quarter being earned by opium farmers and the rest going to district officials, insurgents, warlords, and drug traffickers. In the seven years (1994–2000) prior to a Taliban opium ban, the Afghan farmers' share of gross income from opium was divided among 200,000 families. As of 2017, opium production provides about 400,000 jobs in Afghanistan, more than the Afghan National Security Forces. The opium trade spiked in 2006 after the Taliban lost control of local warlords. In addition to opium, Afghanistan is also the world's leading producer of hashish.
The history of agriculture in India dates back to the Indus Valley Civilization. India ranks second worldwide in farm outputs. As per 2018, agriculture employed more than 50% of the Indian work force and contributed 17–18% to country's GDP.
Gender roles in agriculture are a frequent subject of study by sociologists and farm economists. Historians also study them, as they are important in understanding the social structure of agrarian, and even industrial, societies. Agriculture provides many job opportunities and livelihoods around the world. It can also reflect gender inequality and uneven distribution of resources and privileges among gender. According to the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, women usually have a harder time obtaining land, tools and knowledge than men, especially in developing countries. Several organizations such as Food and Agriculture Organization and independent research have indicated that increasing gender corporation can bring more profits and food security for the community.
The agricultural system in Sub-Saharan Africa is a predominantly small-scale farming system with more than 50% of the agricultural activity performed by women, producing about 60-70% of the food in this region. While women provide the majority of the labor in agricultural production, their access and control over productive resources is greatly constrained due to inequalities constructed by patriarchal norms.
In feminist economics, the feminization of agriculture refers to the measurable increase of women's participation in the agricultural sector, particularly in the developing world. The phenomenon started during the 1960s with increasing shares over time. In the 1990s, during liberalization, the phenomenon became more pronounced and negative effects appeared in the rural female population. Afterwards, agricultural markets became gendered institutions, affecting men and women differently. In 2009 World Bank, FAO & IFAD found that over 80 per cent of rural smallholder farmers worldwide were women, this was caused by men migrating to find work in other sectors. Out of all the women in the labor sector, the UN found 45-80% of them to be working in agriculture
India has a national tradition bound to agriculture fertility. In the North, the Indus valley and Brahmaputra region are critical agricultural areas graced by the Ganges and monsoon season. Based on 2011 World Bank data, only 17.5% of India's gross domestic product (GDP) is accounted for by agricultural production. It is a way of life for majority in the country mostly an estimation of 72% of the 1.1 billion people who live in rural India.
Collective farming and communal farming are various types of "agricultural production in which multiple farmers run their holdings as a joint enterprise". There are two broad types of communal farms: agricultural cooperatives, in which member-owners jointly engage in farming activities as a collective, and state farms, which are owned and directly run by a centralized government. The process by which farmland is aggregated is called collectivization. In some countries, there have been both state-run and cooperative-run variants. For example, the Soviet Union had both kolkhozy and sovkhozy.
The Papaye Peasant Movement, Mouvman Peyizan Papay (MPP) in Haitian Creole, is a grass-roots organization recognized as the largest peasant movement in Haiti. MPP has approximately 60,000 members, including 20,000 women and 10,000 youths. It is localized in the Central Plateau, home to about 13% of the Haitian population, the majority of whom are rural subsistence farmers or agricultural workers.
Women in agriculture in China make up a diverse group of women who support agricultural activities in their country. Because China is a large country, rural women should not be considered a monolithic group, but instead have different strategies for success based on group or family relationships.
Since their independence in 1991 from the Soviet Union, and suffering through a civil war that lasted from 1992 to 1997, Tajikistan has had a difficult time recovering economically and structurally. This economic strain has affected the family dynamic. It is now common for the men to work abroad in Russia, leaving the women to manage the land and children. Up to 74% of the population live in rural areas and rely heavily on agriculture. These women take on the duties of their husbands and or family members, along with their responsibilities as caretakersf. In some cases the men do not return to their homes and or ask for a divorce, leaving their wife and children in a vulnerable position. Tajikistan's culture is deeply patriarchal, with women not attaining the same rights as men. Domestic violence has been a prevalent issue in Tajikistan. Lack of education, resources, cultural norms, and government enforcement, have been factors in women not reporting these crimes. Another issue is the landscape of Tajikistan: 93% of the region is mountainous. The poor infrastructure and isolated villages is a contribution in the difficulty of changing the ideas surrounding genders. The Tajikistan government, with help through partnerships with organizations like the United Nations and other Non Governmental Organizations have drafted several resolutions throughout the years to ameliorate these issues within their society. However, this issue still needs to be researched more deeply.
Will Bonsall is an American author, seed saver and veganic farmer who lives in Maine. He is a regular speaker about seed saving, organic farming and veganic farming.