Women Farmers In Cuba Drive Success Of Communities

Women farmers in Cuba are the new driving force for agricultural innovation, despite traditional opposition to women in farming. They’re getting grants from the Local Agricultural Innovation Programme (PIAL), who fully endorses their work.

“We thought farming was just for men, but that’s a myth,” said a PIAL director. “Women are the ones who are most interested in innovation; it would be unfair not to give them a leading role.”

Women actually make up 52% of the workforce in Cuba and 65% of Cuba’s technical/professional workforce, but farming has traditionally been seen as the men’s realm. One woman farmer, Odaly Aroche, recounted how her husband had been skeptical over her chances for success;

I accepted even though my husband didn’t support me in it. He told me it would be hard, but we planted 42 kinds of potato and then held a ‘diversity fair’ at my house, where the farmers selected the ones they liked.

Grantors often chose to give funds directly to women because of their traditional role as the household manager. The logic goes, if the woman is the primary caretaker of the family home, she’ll be more likely to spend the money on something that helps her household and community. This is obviously a limited way to define a woman’s role, but where the reality of female-run households exists, then maybe there’s some sense to it. And in Cuba, it seems to be working.

Aroche says she believes local farmers now think she’s brought them good ideas, especially given they even elected her to present their next project for a micro-loan. 

So suck on that piece of sugarcane.

Women Farmers Bring Innovation to the Mountains [IPS]