Give more land to women: Min Nyoni
WOMEN in Zimbabwe are still heavily marginalised in land distribution as they account for less than 15 percent of land ownership despite providing 70 percent of all agricultural labour.
According to the 2022 Census results, women constitute 52 percent of the total population and 86 percent of those residing in the countryside depend on land for their livelihoods.
Speaking in her keynote address during the national launch of the commemoration of the International Day of the Rural Women held at Landa John Nkomo Secondary School on Friday, the Minister of Women Affairs, Community, Small and Medium Enterprises Development, Honourable Sithembiso Nyoni said women farmers in Zimbabwe manage smaller plots of land and have less access to agricultural information, land, financial services and other key resources.
“There are a number of challenges and constraints that are experienced by rural women which include registration of land in spouses’ names, inadequate farming support mechanisms, lack of awareness of Government laws and policies concerning women land rights and this is exacerbated by cultural and traditional practices that disadvantage them in favour of men as in the inheritance of land and property,” said Minister Nyoni.
She said regardless of women doing the majority of agricultural work, men, for most part, continue to own more land, control women’s labour and make agricultural decisions. The minister said women were the backbone of the agricultural sector and food security yet they receive low pay and are in low grade sectors with poor promotion prospects as they are in most cases denied the tools and means of sustainability and still confront considerable discrimination that constitute a major obstacle to increase productivity.
“Women’s limited access to land has also hindered them from accessing credit. Land is the major asset rural women can use as collateral security in acquiring bank loans. Denial of secure land property rights make it difficult for women to access credit and this obstructs their agricultural potential,” said Minister Nyoni.
This year’s celebrations were held under the theme, “Rural Women, Cultivating Good Food for All”.
In a statement on the occasion of this day, United Nations said across the world, food systems depend on the daily work of rural women.
They play a variety of essential roles, said the UN, from raising crops and processing their harvest, to preparing food and distributing their products, ensuring that both their families and communities are nourished.
“Yet paradoxically those same women often have less access to food and a higher risk of hunger, malnutrition, under-nutrition and food insecurity than their male counterparts. The reasons for this disconnect from their right to food include unequal power relations and discriminatory gender norms, for example, resulting in women eating last and least in the household, as well as their disproportionate responsibility for unpaid caregiving and domestic work,” reads part of the UN statement.
Despite the planet’s capacity to provide enough good food for everyone, an increasing number of peopleareunabletomeettheirfoodand nutrition needs. This is especially true in the wake of escalating climate and environmental crises, compounded by the Covid-19 pandemic that has disrupted school feeding programmes, interrupted supply chains and severely disrupted the livelihoods of smallscale producers, migrant and seasonal workers and local food vendors.
According to the United Nations, in 2020, some 2,37 billion people did not have access to adequate food and this is an increase of almost 20 percent in just one year, where those most affected were again rural women and girls.