You searched for “women in agriculture”

  On a summer evening in Cambridge, MA, author, educator, and former ambassador Swanee Hunt sat down with activist Chantal Kayitesi and Root Capital founder and CEO Willy Foote to discuss the important role that women have played in Rwanda’s recovery from conflict. Hunt is the author of Rwandan Women Rising, a book she wrote to celebrate the visionary women who are paving the road to Rwanda’s recovery and reconciliation in the wake of the 1994 genocide.

Dora Lisa Carrión Gómez, president of the women's group at the coffee cooperative APROCASSI.  Businesswoman. Farmer. Community leader. Mother. Most of us would struggle to be any one of those things. Dora Lisa Carrión Gómez? She’s all four.

NAIROBI, Kenya, June 7, 2016 — Agricultural impact investor Root Capital announced today that it has received a $3.5 million grant from the IKEA Foundation. The partnership with the IKEA Foundation will help Root Capital give small food production companies in Kenya with credit and financial training to build climate-smart livelihoods for families in rural areas, including women and young people.

A Root Capital financial management workshop in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico. A few years ago, Esperanza Dionisio, the general manager of Pangoa, a coffee cooperative in Peru, told us a story about a meeting she’d recently attended. “There wasn’t a single woman there,” she said. “More than a hundred men, all of them stunned, looking at me like some kind of rare insect. But I had the chance to raise my hand and say something, and they were all shocked. It was just me and all those men, but I had the background and the knowledge, and so in the end they were satisfied, and they appreciated my work.”

Plenary panel at the 2015 Global Women's Network. Photo credit: ExxonMobil Foundation. Earlier this week, Iliana Martinez, the general manager of Cooperativa Esquipulas, a smallholder coffee farmer cooperative and Root Capital client in the highlands of Guatemala, and Root Capital’s SVP Catherine Gill joined First Ladies, private and public sector leaders, and the next generation of innovators in Dallas at the George W. Bush Presidential Center’s two-day Global Women’s Network summit.

When I envision how to make agriculture work for the world, I think of a system that feeds the global population of nine billion that is expected by 2050 — especially those in cycles of chronic hunger and malnutrition. I think of better farming practices that increase yields and productivity, and that dramatically improve incomes for small-scale producers and the rural poor. I think of an enlightened food industry, as locally based as possible, that creates good jobs across every value chain and protects fragile ecosystems and biodiversity everywhere. And I think of agriculture as a crucial equalizer of opportunity for women and girls, one that provides dignity for the most marginalized populations on earth.   Visiting with coffee farmers on the shores of Lake Kivu in western Rwanda

The baobab trees of West Africa, gigantic in size and majestic in stature, are providers: They store water and food for animals in times of drought; they provide homes for birds (owls, parakeets and hawks) throughout the year; and, for many local families, the mighty baobab produces fruit, seeds and leaves that provide a critical source of income. Just starting a Root Capital due diligence trip in northern Senegal, beside the mighty baobab tree.

Juana Hu Mateo, general coordinator at ACMUV. “In my home, my father and my mother always valued my sister and me less than my brothers,” says Juana Hu Mateo, a 41-year-old from Guatemala’s indigenous Maya Ixil community. Despite her parents’ lack of support and community norms against women’s participation outside the home, Juana persevered to study, eventually finding work as a seasonal coffee sorter at Asociación Chajulense, a coffee cooperative and Root Capital client in the western highlands of Guatemala.

Members of the women-only group that produce “Café Feminino” at the Nuhaulá cooperative. In early September, we released our second issue brief, Applying a Gender Lens to Agriculture: Farmers, Leaders, and Hidden Influencers in the Rural Economy, which chronicles our experience working to empower women throughout the economic continuum. This post is the first in a series of snapshots…

In this issue brief, we share how we've applied a gender lens to our work in smallholder agricultural finance. Through our Women in Agriculture Initiative, we're doubling down on our support for women farmers, agro-processing employees, and leaders. This program is fostering economic empowerment and underscoring the vital nature of women in less conspicuous—but high-impact—agricultural roles.

Download Issue Brief