Gender equity

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Gender dimensions in the agricultural sector

Gender equity is a key factor for sustainable and inclusive agricultural supply chains. Although women in the agricultural sector make an essential contribution to agricultural production, they are also affected by massive injustices and discrimination. They often work in irregular, informal, and vulnerable employment contexts. In cocoa production in Côte d'Ivoire, for example, women make up 68 % of the labour force on cocoa plantations but receive only 15 % of the total income from cocoa production. The situation is similar in the coffee industry, where women are often employed in less lucrative areas of the supply chain.

In addition, due to traditional role models and discriminatory social norms women are usually responsible for cooking, care work, education and cleaning in their households. This multiple burden of unpaid domestic and care work further restricts women's participation in markets.

Although women are often referred to as the "backbone of agriculture" and make a key contribution to global food production, they only hold 13.8 % of land rights worldwide. For cocoa and coffee, land access, ownership and use rights are key conditions for benefiting from participation in the supply chain - however, women often face socio-cultural and legal challenges in acquiring land, e.g. through customary law, and earn less income as a result.

Further gender inequalities can be seen in the lack of access to resources, such as technologies and financial assets, as well as in the limited participation in decision-making processes.

Disadvantage and discrimination in the agricultural and food sector is not only based on gender, but also on many other mutually reinforcing factors, e.g. skin colour, religion, age, disability and sexual orientation.

The example of the Indonesian palm oil sector clearly demonstrates the importance of an intersectional approach that considers other factors of discrimination in addition to gender: Indigenous women as well as casual, migrant, and migrant workers are particularly affected by injustices due to their gender and ethnicity. In addition, they usually do not have employment contracts and are therefore exposed to a high risk of falling into massive economic and legal dependency on their employers.

To achieve a sustainable improvement in the working and living conditions of women and girls in agricultural supply chains, cooperation at individual, institutional and political level is of crucial importance. Gender transformative approaches (GTA) that scrutinise underlying social and cultural gender norms and power relations and work towards changing them are necessary to create a gender-equitable agricultural economy.

One example of this is addressing the gender-based division of labour in agricultural supply chains and the associated multiple burdens on women in the respective target group and rethinking them together.

Opportunities for gender equity in agricultural supply chains

The empowerment of women and other marginalised groups holds enormous potential.

Gender equity and poverty reduction go hand in hand as complementary development goals. Better access to resources such as land and digital tools can strengthen the autonomy and status of women in their households and communities and promote their participation in more profitable activities in supply chains. For women and girls, this can lead to increased yields and incomes. This in turn can catalyse further improvements, for example in food security and child nutrition, as women spend a greater proportion of their income on food. In addition, women's increased income also helps to close the income gap of the entire household towards a living income. At the community level, women's participation in productive activities can contribute to improved social status, which to some extent can also challenge discriminatory gender norms and support their transformation.

Taking gender aspects into account not only contributes to achieving social justice, but is also relevant for improving corporate and macroeconomic performance. The inclusion of women in agricultural supply chains can have a positive impact on productivity, quality, and production volumes, strengthens the reputation of companies and opens new market opportunities.

Overall, the dismantling of discriminatory structures for women and other marginalised groups offers great potential for all people, regardless of their gender, age, origin, or religious affiliation. The BMZ is pursuing a feminist development policy (FEP) and presented a strategy for this in March 2023, which also serves as the basis for our priority themes and is applied beyond the INA gender team.

Our fields of action

We in the INA gender team derive two central fields of action from the challenges and opportunities mentioned above. We want to introduce gender equity into global transformation processes such as the EU regulatory processes. In addition, we want to promote gender equity in agricultural supply chains in cooperation with the private sector and civil society. In doing so, we rely on multi-stakeholder partnerships (MSPs) and individual measures such as the Due Diligence Fund to ensure that gender aspects are adequately considered along the entire supply chain. However, we at INA also see Gender transformative approaches as a central component of all activities and processes.