Tape #445 - Women and Sustainable Rural Development

 

Introduce myself.  My name is Pattora [inaudible] and I am Iranian, but I live in Germany.  I am lecturer in women studies in agriculture at the Humberg University of Berlin and it is the Department of Agriculture and Horticulture.  Now women studies in Berlin started just a few years ago so it it is a new topic for that university, for the agriculture sciences.  Normally they are a quite conservative in this case they wanted to show a little bit openness toward the world, especially towards the problems of third world countries and they institutionalized actually one topic which is rural sociology and in this sociologic women studies is a new unit and we have also a center for women in rural development.  For the weekend, and this is the reason I why I have to go back, we have our third international conference on women in sustainable rural development in Berlin and so I don't have all of your addresses, but if you could do me a favor, just make a list of you who are here if you're interested we will get in touch with you for the next time.

 

Up to this moment, we were able to organize this every second year and the next one will be in the year 2000.  We are trying to get entrance to the expos 2000 which will be in Hanover in international world conference at Hanover and there we have applied to give a presentation about under the title of Future of Work.  Because I think we need a new definition of what is work, what is necessary work that has to be done and normally it is also that what I wanted to present, but if you're interested in the case studies that I've done about Iran, especially because this is my home country and I had the opportunities of going back to Iran during the last years and doing field research in my own country. 

 

So there have been aspects that I have written about.  I can give you a short note on the article that I wrote about food security and household security and the participation of women in the agriculture field.  It is still I think for myself, it was quite impressing that there are a lot of activities now going on in Iran especially after I think 1990 and as I mentioned that in the other workshop where I gave my paper, it was on global economy and if you're interested, I think they have the tapes so maybe you can use that tape as well so I won't reply all of that.  But still I think it is interesting that also Iran during the preparational work for the Beijing Conference became very active in the field of gathering at least data and doing something to show that they are concerned about the situation of women in the country. And I had the fear that this will stop completely after the Beijing Conference. 

 

But actually I think that women who are now were about their power cannot be stopped after this conference.  I hope that especially with the many women who went to vote for Hatame (sic) whom they thought will be more liberal politician towards their rights.  So I think that they are becoming now quite active.  Compared with Germany I think this discussion is now going on in Iran. Women in agriculture had they had a conference for example September last year about the participation of women in the year of 1400 this is in about twenty years due to the Islamic Iranian calendar and at least it was interesting that the number of new research work has been done in Iran field research work.

 

Still I think that we have the problem in methodology because normally if women studies are going to be done, we follow a gap approach I think.  Gap approach means that we compare women either to men or to urban women in saying in literacy or say in their participation and things like that.  But I don't think that this really gets you to the point what women really do and what they really give to the society as long as you always tell them you don't know this and you don't have that. 

 

I will just mention that one of the most important export goods of Iran after oil still are the Persian carpets and Persian carpets are handicrafts, arts, products of women at least 80 to 90% of them are produced in rural areas and it is at a home base level and this handicraft production has even increased during the last 10-15 years because they thought it is a very good economic source.  But now that normally all the programs on women in rural development we are the women in development programs in Iran as well influence very much from the international organizations.

 

They are also very much going to  with the direction of income generating activities.  And the case studies, there are some at least case studies done about carpet production.  But we can find that economic productivity of women doesn't mean their empowerment or it at least is not automatically coming with just economic activities.  And this I think should be taken into consideration when we think about improving the economic situation of women pushing them into the market economy because it doesn't mean automatically that they will become more free whereas I think a much better approach could be to look at the positive potential of women that the work the necessary work that women normally do for the society and this at least is still very much in the sphere of household economy. 

 

Household economy in a country like Iran doesn't mean that it is only the reproductive sphere, but as with the example of carpet production, we can find that it is a very productive sphere of household economy but as well for the national economy.  And it is about 90% of household budget for example in regions with low agriculture production that comes from carpet weaving.  This is important because not all the Iranian regions are able to give a good agricultural production and productivity.  It is only in small regions especially at the Caspian sea where we have intensive farming for cotton production, tea production, rice production and there even though statistically not very much registered, women do at least 70% of the work that is necessary in rice production, 77 some of these data defer.  Because of this Beijing Conference, of course Iran was also very eager to come up with some data, but the data bases, of course is not very good especially because all that household economic activities of women do not count for the statisticians as far as only wage labor is calculated.

 

And this is the reason why the share of women statistically is less than eight or ten percent whereas if we look into more details field research, we find out that it is much higher.  As I said depending on the ecological and depending on the situation and also on the culture background of the region this might arrive very much.

 

But for Iran, they said an average of 40% of agriculture activities that's done by women in Iran and lately in this year, this was for the Beijing Conference.  I think that the women who were in charge for giving these reports and statistics came up with that women share is 50%.  Now this is a political data, I think.  It was very wise to tell first their share is 50% as far as it is not equal to men so the world is ok.  And it become more complicated if their share is much higher. 

 

But now I think they are becoming more courageous, the women and they have allowed themselves to say that women share is about 50%.  I don't think that these average datas will help us very much but they are political datas just as everywhere else.  And they are starting to build campaigns for extension services women who are now able to go to the universities and study agriculture science, horticulture are in the extension services.  But we don't have schools for vocational training for farm women and it is also a problem that's giving education is very much oriented towards an urban way of life.  It is not very much oriented to the rural economy and to the everyday life so actually when they get educated the women don't want to stay in the villages just as the men don't want to stay in the villages as well.

 

And I think that it is not the problem of saying its not good for women to be educated, I think this is something very necessary, but the way or that what they are going to be taught might be reflected as well if there should be still a life going on in the rural areas of Iran because this is what I have mentioned also in the other workshop about the global interaction and the global economy Iran is among the countries very much depending on wheat imports and wheat subsidized and bread is subsidized, but this is the policy that is going to diminish the situation of women in the field of agriculture because then all the money will go into one mono-cultural type of agriculture production and the whole technology is very much oriented towards men and not so much towards women productivity.  As far as I have to leave to get my plane I would stop here to give you the opportunity of putting some questions if you are interested but I can give you the reference of the paper that I wrote about this situation in Iran about food security and to just to mention that there might be a copy of that other workshop on global economy.  Ok, thank you very much.  If there is any question?

 

It's not too much to put you on the spot, but I think all of us at some point you have had a conversation with somebody I went to such and such seminar and hear such and such.  How many people have told their friends something they heard in another session?  Ok, fair enough.  So this is a fair enough question. 

 

I was talking to somebody who said to me I went to the seminar that you did previously and they said all she talked about was how women should concentrate on feeding their families and providing food for their families and making sure that their husbands got hot meals and pretty much said I'm horrified.  I said I'm horrified.  I'm asking you if it was said.  I'm asking you how she would have gotten that out of your speech and to clarify it I guess?  Not to put you too much on the spot, but in my own mind I want to clarify it.

 

I think it's interesting because I don't mention that woman should do that only.  The point that I want to mention is women who are doing the household work, this work should be appreciated and valued.  I think that this is the important point and not to say they should only do that.  But if they do it as far as women get children even in the highly industrialized countries, I don't know exactly about the situation in the United States, but in Germany it is the way that women normally stay at home and they don't share in the work market.  This means that they are not very good secure for their old age pension.  If you grow up three children you have negative points and not positive points due to this system of paying your old pension I don't know rates and etc.

 

Now if this is the case and I don't think that a country like Iran can be able to offer so much services so that women will share the work market and also to have facilities for their children, then if she is staying home this work should be valued and this is what I mentioned.  I think it is very good to have the possibility to have the free choice to go to work outside home, but for the period of time where you stay home, I think that this should be valued from the society and from the economic calculation.  And as long as this has not been calculated as a necessary type of work, I think the economy doesn't work really because it does not give value to those things like environment and the hidden work of women.

 

Yes.

 

My name is Lea Pennulee and I'm from Canada.  I'm grateful that you brought that point up because I think it's the feedback group that is really important and I would just like to comment, it wasn't the impression that I received from listening to the same information.  So I guess it's all that we have different ears and hear different things.  It's all subject to personal interpretation as well, but thank you.  Yes and I think that's an important part of the feedback is how we perceive and how we hear.

 

Maybe because I think we should not only talk about food security as a market commodity and I said that preparing meals for human being is very important type of work and I don't agree with the term feeding because I think it has the connotation like feeding animals and this is what I wanted to mention that human beings normally eat culturally bound and this cultural ceremonies I think are very important and lot of that work is done by women and this their social interaction, their networking actually and this is what makes you secure in a society where you normally are not economically very secure no matter whether you have today a job or not you might lose that job.  The only thing that you can really count on are your networking, your social relationships and this is something that women do actually with their type of let's say being host for other people, preparing things for other people, passing meals to other people and these are the chains for social interaction.  And I don't agree with normal type of saying food security debates I think they are too short cut.  They don't look into the preparation of meals.  This is maybe also a difference.

 

Anyone else? 

 

I completely agree with that the home work that the ladies are doing has to be valuable.  But from the economy point of view or from the economy background, how it can do?  I don't know it's so easy to tell ok we need to have this, we have to have this but which are the solutions?  How can we put this kind of labor in the main economy just only to show the others that ok we need to have something, but we have to show them how we can realize that.  Do you have any idea or

 

No I don't have the solution, but I think that even if the economic calculation doesn't calculate something, it doesn't mean it is meaningless.  And I think it is also the problem of economic theory.  And this is becoming more obvious also in countries like Germany that this whole type of social services that has become with the invisible woman now that it is going to be less.  You have to pay quite a high amount for it.  This at least is something that is coming and the economist will have to calculate this in the next millennium and otherwise their theories won't work.  This is what I'm thinking about and it's the same with environmental problems.  They have never calculated that.  This doesn't mean it is not worth anything, it is the weakness of the economic theory and it is not the weakness of women's work.  I think it is man-made.  In this case it is really man-made and not human kind made.  And this is why I would apply for a more engendering agriculture policy, economy and then we would reflect much more on all those things that have not been discovered by economic theory.  And this is the place where I think that women's voices are very important to make sure that they are doing absolutely necessary type of works even if it is not paid for but it is worth something.  And I don't know the theory, I'm not an economist, but I would say this would be one of the most important things to be added into economic thinking.  Otherwise their theories won't work in future.

 

[another speaker] Actually that's where I think this conference  should be able to bring that out at the end of the four days.  It should be part of the recommendations or resolutions that a study should be made.  We go to the different conferences every year and this problem comes up each time.  And we leave it to chance.  We have women economist who are specialized in gender issues and I'm sure if in the studies and put up for consultation I think something should be done.

 

[another speaker]  There are also economic theories that try to integrate it, so I don't think it is something very strange to ask for, but we are not use to it yet.  This is the problem I think, but I think time allocation for example is something that has already been also reflected by economist.  Ok, so I will leave you. This is just the introduction of the article and I think it's was interesting for me that this was at least for some people the result of my speech saying that I want the woman to stay in the kitchen.  I know that this is also much discussed in the feminist groups and also in Germany that is hard to understand, but I think for a lot of countries household economy is very very important, even if we don't like it very much and even if we don't like it, it is very worthy to be calculated also economically.  This is only think I wanted to say and I will just leave this because there is also a reference in that and I have to pass it now.  I don't know if there is anyone else who would take over and would like to join something, if you will come.  Ok, so thank you very much.  Thank you.

 

[Applause]

 

This is short summary of the article I wrote and this is the reference. 

 

Ok, we have another speaker.  Excuse me, we have another speaker.

 

No, I'm sorry our speaker has to rush so we sort of started so that she could make her presentation quickly.  And I will get you some copies of her presentation and pass them out, but at this time. 

 

We'd like to continue with the breakout session and while I'm normally fairly good with names, this time I think I'll be extremely it will be difficult for me, so I'm going to ask the speaker if she would Omo and a very long last name if she would just introduce herself to you and to make her presentation and then afterwards if you have any questions or do you want the questions during the time you make your presentation.  She would like to have her questions after she makes her presentation and I'll make you copies for the previous and get them back to you shortly.

 

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, I would like to continue on same note.  My topic is, ok I'm suppose to introduce myself.  My name is Omo [long last name] from Botswana and I work for the Minister of Agriculture.  The paper I presented is by three of us, two colleagues, one is associate economist and Catherine is an irrigation engineer with the ministry and I'm a food technologist and in the latest dispensation of food security in the Saddack world, we think the  multiphasitiness of food security should be respected.  It tends to solve the problem faster than looking at the problems individually. 

 

Why do we talk of food security?  We should be able to look at the problems and if we look at the overhead we find that nutrition problems are the issues we are trying to reduce the problems not just reduce and at times we probably be able to eradicate nutrition problems by nutrition and things related to nutrition and health conditions.

 

Ok.  For the definition of food security in Botswana we tend to look at the national food strategy and its states that the food security is a condition by which we have a stable and sustainable physical and economic access for all people to basis supply of farm safe and nutritionally adequate food for active healthy life.  That's by the national food strategy.  Ok. 

 

However, in the Saddack in recent time we have gone on to put agriculture in the center of every issue in food security because the majority of the people depend on agriculture no matter what the condition whether they're at war, drought, flood or hunger, agriculture comes to play.  At the macro-level we talk of food as a liability, at the household level, we talk of access and acquisition and the latest thing in the food security equation is the food use, the individual nutrition.  Because we find in the Saddack world some countries have our food secure at national level, but food insecure at the household level.  At individual level we find that even if you cannot produce food or if you can produce very little food, if you knew exactly what the end use is going to be, you tend to economize.  For example, if you produce a kilogram of sorghum and you are able to ferment it, you're able to process it, you tend to get more nutrition out one kilogram of sorghum than if the sorghum was not processed.  This is the way we are now looking at food security because of the problems and constraints in agriculture depending on the country. 

Also we look at agriculture as vis-va-vis food processing, distribution and marketing.  And for us to be able to talk of this issues in relevant times, we must add education, we must add training and when we talk of education we should talk of education at every level.  Not just at the university level as it use to be, but we want to see food security, nutrition, education and economics, business management and particularly awareness at primary school level, secondary school level, class training and then the university.  And the training should be at every single level and every nook and corner of the country.

 

We must not take for granted that people understand what food security is.  We should not take for granted that the policies are understood.  That is why we recommend we promote training especially of women, the vulnerable groups so that they can help themselves, not just helping individuals.  And please take note that the food use individual nutrition is very important.  Even with the breeders.  We talk of value diversity.  Unless you know what you want to use it for there is no point of talking about diversity. 

 

It was in the past that we use to do things in isolation.  Now we are saying all the breeders, the agronomist, the food technologist, the nutritionist, the [inaudible] nutrition experts should from the beginning plan programs with the interest and integrity of the populist for the programs to work. 

 

The objective of our work was and will always be the fact that we want to promote food security at household level.  We would want to forget the national level.  In years past, let's say 15-17 years when food security policy had been started in West Africa, East Africa and now in southern eastern Africa, we continue to promote food security at national level.  We are now saying we should go down and look at food security at household individual level.  Even when the countries rich we should go down and look at how rich the country is by the aggregates that you get at household level food security detail. 

 

Therefore, we put forward three objectives in our work.  1. To look at the participation of the people in development programs.  What sort of techniques and methods we bring forward the participation of the people.  And we explain the use of participation rule appraisal for work in evaluating and analyzing what exactly the people want.  Unless little participated in the planning in the thinking, and the implementation of the program, it will never work.  So our logo is like participation works.  So we're promoting PRA.

 

2.  We are promoting the development of irrigation as a provider of fresh vegetables.  Because from the country I come from when you talk of stable foods, you'd be wasting your time.  Everybody tend to tell me that, but I will always promote agriculture wherever I go.  One thing we should always know is that we can always diversify.  You do not have to plant sorghum if sorghum will not do well or maze.  You can plant other products, other commodities that would do well and beats malnutrition.  So we are promoting development of irrigation and this program or project is sponsored and run by FAO staff. 

 

The third program that we are promoting is food processing, preservation and preparation.  And we focus on preservation in the not traditional way because as I had explained earlier, the better nutrition you get out of stable foods or other commodities that will diversify to would tend to get better results and so we decided that we not going to take the women or the youth for granted.  We are going to train them.  We are going to show them how to do it and make sure that there is a follow-up program.  We are all human we can't forget.  We can decide to do it differently, but if trainers are around at community level, they can always ask questions and they can always be answered or if does not have questions they can always contact us facilitators so that the program will be more sustainable.

 

Of course what did we look at?  We look at food security as a three legged African pot which is without one leg, the pot will not stand.  I hope we do know what a three legged African pot is.  Yes, no.  Imagine a black iron pot with three legs and we cook in it.  We cook with firewood and unless the pot is standing, it would be difficult for you to put the firewood under.  So we come on to discuss the issue of the next which we are promoting. 

 

That is when you look at food security, you look at food security as a relationship between the environment, agriculture vis-va-vis food security and population.  Why do we talk of the nexus.  The nexus is the fact that most of the African family is headed by the woman.  And when it is so, you find that the number of children is usually like four to six and an average of five by a female headed household.  Which means, when you solve the problem of population increase or decrease depending on the country, you must look at the environment and of course agriculture and not just production. 

 

Crop production is the beginning of food production.  This is the way we look at food security in recent times.  And we hope that with time we'll be able to justify and find that we are correct or modify our thinking in a way that it will help improve food security at household level.  It is a challenge to all of us.  Especially friends of Africa. 

 

Today I be discussing the PRA, the practical implementation of the policy issues in Botswana, the PRA, the irrigation development and food security, food processing and the role it plays in food security nutrition [inaudible] security, prospects and discussion, practical solutions and of course when you get the paper you find the references because most of the work we are discussing today are quite new.

 

The PRA work was like summarized from two major consultants that is the gender issue work which was commissioned and the conclusions that we came about showing that when you introduce programs top down you tend to fail and that gender equity program we discussed issues that made us to believe that PRA does work and now we promote the fact that PRA which is bottom up must be taught and the extension workers trained to use it.  There is no point thinking that by just explaining what PRA is good enough, so we decided that an awareness program will be the best thing to do.  If I go out to discuss data collection and data analysis at that time out to discuss PRA to explain it, to discuss it and get a feedback from our extension agents.  So that I know whether they are ready to use PRA or not. 

 

Why are we so particular in the use of PRA?  If we believe that PRA works, we must not take the extension worker for granted because they had over the years used top down methodology.  It is compulsory that we teach it to them, we explain it to them and make sure that we take in their feedback, their fear and constraints because at the beginning the extension workers used to be the masters.  They come to a village and give instructions to the farmers, to the entrepreneurs and they were suppose to agree and do exactly what they say.  But PRA method is a bottom up approach which means they have to [inaudible] the farmers, the entrepreneurs and make them feel wanted, make them believe that the program is coming from them.

 

END OF SIDE 1

 

They will now go from region to region to train which means the training is region specific, community specific.  If we go to the east we solve the problem of the east and then we go to the west we solve the problem of the west.  Which means like in the east fish might be the most important issue and then we do fish processing, drying and storage and marketing and distribution.  And then we go to the west then we do the same thing of the problem of the west maybe sorghum they will process sorghum.  We refrain from generalize and training. 

 

So we had decided that it seem with the training of trainers we are able to have a crop of people who understand and who are able to give follow-up in future.  We approach from the capital and whenever there is going to be a training we contact the trainers and the trainers will now set up what they think is possible and then we now go for a [inaudible] assessment.  One to see that the materials are ok and then we assess the [inaudible] at community level and also what exactly do we have that can continue to act as a buffer for the training that we had done. 

 

One good thing about Botswana is that at every regional level, we have a rural training center and this training is carried out at the rural training center.  We have [inaudible] at the rural training center level and we can involve anybody from the community nutritionist, local government staff and the business entrepreneurial and specialist at community level.  If you were approach from the capital we have just taken everybody from the headquarters, do the training and go away.  From this kind of training we find that there are people at the grassroots level that have this specialities and we use them so that they can now give follow-ups. 

 

They can give for that training at district level.  At district level we have technical and assistance and we still have to train these people who are the nearest person nearest extension agent to the farmers.  The farmers training was carried out at pilot testing level which meant we kind of found out from the farmers what exactly they would want to see in the training.  We didn't leave everything to the extension agent.  And the training of farmers is more fun than training of extension agents because you learn a lot from them as we know the traditional knowledge of the farmers is quite vast.  And that traditional knowledge would not belittle. 

 

From the first training we had with the farmers, we had not come up with survey and documentation of traditional fruits and vegetables, traditional processes of foods in the land.  And we intend to document what they had told us improving the processes for food security at household level and of cost for income generation.

 

Also we have found that from the training we did at regional level when we had representative from the different regions, we now found out that we needed to have more trainers because at the farmer's level, we needed trainers to work with the farmers who are slower.  In the past we never took notice that some farmers were not as fast as their friends.  So we took PRA, they were able to talk to us.  Like you know sometimes, in this and training is difficult for some farmers to follow as quickly as we would want, but they keep quiet and they would not want to share their ignorance.  So we tend now to use more trainers when we are training farmers.  And I think and there is a lot to learn from this methodology.  It's tedious, it's time consuming, it is better done well than done the way it use to be.  We believe that participation works and if we are going to promote PRA we are going to do it the way the farmers want.

 

Through the PRA method in the training of trainers, we were able to come up with an action plan for working with the village and this work in the village had brought out a lot of good issues.  At the PRA training the villagers wanted just the vegetable gardening, backyard vegetable gardening.  By working with them, they now started asking don't you think that we should add processing? 

 

And then nutrition education had we explained to our children and we all know that children don't like eating vegetables.  That brings in nutrition education.  And I could tell you that the program is food processing whereby we teaching nutrition education and [inaudible] of food processing, goodness of trees and all the likes.  But we didn't force it on them.  So it is like fun every month they phone us, they go to the chief's place and phone when are you coming and the farming community knows when to call us and it's like they own the program and so it's fun for everybody.

 

To end to this discussion we decided that we should talk about prospects and practical solutions.  The prospects because of what I had explained from the CAP we find out that PRA does work especially when you use the correct method.  Not everybody can use the PRA where people tend to modify it, but when it is used properly it works.

 

2.  That it is better to improve on human resource development than coming to do training and then going away.  To improve on human resource is like you're making the training more sustainable.  The fact that we were able to use home gardening through home gardening we now coming on back to food processing and nutrition education makes the farmers feel that the program is theirs.  And of course we want our program to be tested elsewhere. Looked at differently, modified and then we can come together sometime, network and see how we can modify the program from one country to the other. 

 

We want to promote a collaborative effort so that the different collaborators will share experiences.  Practical solutions participation works, the programs must come from the community.  The extension agents must be prepared to change and to try the bottom up approach.  Only then can PRA succeed.  The extension agents must be well trained in order that they can be in a position to facilitate the change and make more follow-ups because most of our projects fail because there are no follow-ups.

 

Farmers must be aware from the beginning and carry through all the planning stages.  This is to enable for appropriate modifications in the training program.  The rural population and particular female headed households benefit by this approaches.  It is therefore important to continue the development according to this lines.  In order to ensure holistic approach to food security and better livelihood in rural areas.  Thank you.

 

[Applause]

 

Thank you so much.  There's a summary of the presentation that came first that's being passed forward and we do have time to entertain some questions.

 

Participation rural appraisal.

 

I'm just wondering what's your biggest challenge in the PRA approaches, is it the extension training and getting them to be open to the bottom up approach?

 

Thank you for that question.  Yes, it is because the extension agent is like lord and master and the PRA is putting them like second position.  That is why we started with an awareness program, explaining and getting the feedback and telling them it is not like it use to be and they shouldn't be threatened also, like psychological warfare. 

 

[inaudible]

 

At the end of my paper you have a couple of reference of work done to support the program. 

 

Are there any more questions? 

 

Are the copies of your paper available or where would we tract you down and get one? 

 

I have a copy that I will give to facilitator or moderator and then she will be able copy. 

 

Yes I will.  Ok they still should be floating around, because I made quite a few.  I don't see where this one is being taped.

Fine.  I will make copies of the paper.  It's a table, remember where registration table is?  Ok there is a table right across from it, directly across from it.  I will try to make and have them available by 5:45, 5:30-5:45 if I can.  If not they will be out there before 8:30 tomorrow morning and if we are out of the others one.  If I can get a copy I'll make additional copies of that as well and have that available on that table.

 

Again we like to thank you for your presentation today and thank you for coming.  Enjoy the rest of the afternoon that you have before the banquet.  Put your feet up and rest a while.  Thank you.  Applause.