The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), Yemen Office, organized a workshop, last week, under the patronage of his Excellency, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Planning and International Cooperation, Mr. Abdul Alkarim Al-Arhabi, titled, “Sharing Knowledge and Best Practices Stories on Rural Poverty Reduction in Yemen”.
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When it started in 1997, the Nsawkaw Cashew Nut Processing Company was a small enterprise that bought cashews from farmers in the central Brong Ahafo region of Ghana and sold them to larger markets. Now with a loan from the Government of Ghana, the company is adding a warehouse to its operations and teaming up with other small-scale cashew firms in the area, allowing it to operate with a workforce of 40 women and bringing more local farmers into cashew growing.
Sitting in the shade of mango trees, some twenty Malian women sing, dance, and joke. One makes soap from shea butter. Another prepares the midday meal. The others slice shallots to dry in the sun and sell in the village.
These women belong to Benkadi, an association in Ségou, a city in the southern party of the country. They are part of a network that sells dried produce form market gardens. CIDA supports this network through the Gender and Development Fund.
Despite many dire predictions to the contrary, the world continues to grow food at a rate that exceeds the rate of population growth. While rising per capita food production is no guarantee that hunger can be staved off, it would appear that hunger and malnutrition are actually on the decline.
The loss of biodiversity has a disproportionate impact on women. The ways in which water scarcity and contamination and deforestation make women’s water and fuel gathering tasks more taxing and timeconsuming is well documented. The centrality of a healthy, biologically diverse environment to the spiritual and cultural belief systems of indigenous communities, particularly indigenous women, has also received significant attention.