How You Can Help Women Get Land Rights

by Katherine Gustafson · 2009-11-12 06:00:00 UTC
Topics:

Earlier this week I wrote about how women grow the majority of the world's food but own a tiny fraction of the world's land. This major imbalance makes women — and thus families — more insecure and effectively leaves a major segment of daily natural resource users out of our global conversations on issues such as global warming, sustainable agriculture and food crises.

Alert reader David Mastroianni asked what we can all do to help fix this situation. Here are some ideas.

  • Advocate for Congress to pass the Global Food Security Act of 2009 (H.R. 3077)
, introduced by Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.) in the House of Representatives, which calls for a food security strategy that will “prioritize and support the central role of women in agricultural production” around the world. This will be a step in the right direction of recognizing women's monumental contribution to our world's food systems. Senators Dick Lugar (R-Ind.) and Bob Casey (D-Pa.) have introduced a companion bill (S. 384) in the Senate.

  • Learn more about the issue. Start with the short "Fact Sheet on Women and Land" (PDF) from Rural Development Institute (RDI) for a down-and-dirty overview. The Gender in Agriculture Sourcebook from the World Bank is an excellent starter-kit for those looking to learn a little more. The 16 modules will give you a comprehensive understanding, complete with extensive bibliography and suggestions for further reading.

  • Once you've learned all there is to know, tweet, blog, chat or otherwise spread the word about the importance of this issue. To take your involvement further, attend or help plan an event for International Women's Day on March 8.

  • Support organizations that are fighting this fight, including the one I mentioned in my previous post, RDI's new Global Center for Women's Land Rights, and the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW), which is currently spotlighting the issue of women in agriculture. Your help can take the form of a donation check, an offer to volunteer or a simple commitment to spread the word to other would-be donors and helpers.

Photo courtesy of IRRI Images via flickr

Katherine Gustafson is a freelance writer and editor with a background in international nonprofit organizations.
PREVIOUS STORY:
Vote for Your Local Food Heroes
NEXT STORY:
Victory! Smithfield Will Stop Using Cruel Gestation Crates

COMMENTS (0)

    Comment Policy

    · All fields are required to comment.

    [X]

    Comments on Change.org are meant for further exploration and evaluation of the campaign on Change.org. To that end, we welcome constructive comments. However, we reserve the right to delete comments which, as determined solely in our discretion: (1) are offensive, abusive, or off-topic; (2) include content solely intended to personally attack the campaign creator, (3) are designed to subvert or hijack comment threads rather than contribute to them; and/or (4) violate our terms of service and/or privacy policy. Repeat offenders may be permanently removed from the site at our discretion. Please also be advised that: (A) we do not actively curate and/or monitor in any manner whatsoever the comments made on the Change.org platform, and (B) the creator of each campaign on Change.org may remove any comment at her/his/its discretion.