Women can plow under a global hunger crisis
Ritu Sharma, co-founder and President, Women Thrive Worldwide and USGLC educational arm board member
Boston Globe, July 6, 2009
This week, 4 million more people worldwide will go to bed hungry. Seven out of 10 of them are women. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization reports that the total number of hungry people has topped 1 billion. The world’s poorest citizens can only afford a third as much staple food as they could three years ago.
Last month, while traveling in the West African nation of Burkina Faso, I met with rural women who wake at 4 a.m., walk miles to fetch water and prepare their children for school. Then they head to small plots of land that they farm (but do not own). After hours working in the 100-degree sun, the women return home to meet their children and prepare the midday meal of rice and greens. They return to their plots or to another task for several more hours, then prepare another meal for their children – if there is food available. If they didn’t get a turn at the community well in the morning, it’s time to walk back and forth watering their crops, two cans at a time.
Such women are the most important players in global agriculture, but they are never at the table when grand projects to combat global hunger are hatched.
