Empowering Women in Farming with Equity
When you picture a farmer today, is a woman the first image that comes to mind? Probably not. Yet today, in farming communities all around the world, women are a significant driving force. According to estimates from the UN FAO, women farmers represent 43%1 of the global agricultural workforce and make up 60% of agricultural workers in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Yet, many women still face significant hurdles and discrimination when it comes to land ownership, and access to financial services and resources.
Ensuring women farmers are successful is not only key to improving livelihoods for them and their families, but is essential to strengthening global food security and nutrition. To succeed, women farmers must have the same opportunities as men to access training, inputs, finance and support.
How is Olam Agri supporting women in farming?
Our strong presence in Africa and Asia is enabling us to drive equity, promote inclusive growth and reduce inequalities in the communities where we operate. Working closely alongside local governments, non-governmental organisations, and other partners, we are providing opportunities that many women might not have access to, such as skills training, education and better access to health, finance, markets and agronomy knowledge.
Across Olam Agri, we’re forging change and creating equity-based solutions to help uplift the livelihoods, farm productivity and health of entire communities and women across Africa and Asia. This is central to achieving our 2030 sustainability goals, where we are striving to make a positive impact across the entire value chain. We’ve set ourselves targets to reduce social inequalities for 200,000 women, youth and marginalised groups, and to improve our internal diversity and inclusion policies to ensure a greater representation of women in management roles globally.
Let’s find out the how the women of Olam Agri are championing equity-based change within their communities.