Women leaders from farmer organizations belonging to AFA called on international leaders involved in climate change talks to craft policies with a gender and agriculture perspective and to support capacity building for women on climate change adaptation.
In a consultation entitled “Asian women farmers reclaiming space for food sovereignty amidst climate change” held last October 6-8, 2009 in Bangkok, Thailand, the women leaders shared experiences and views on the effects of climate change and how they adapt to it.
Climate change is seen as a real global issue affecting small scale farmers, and Asia is one of the most affected areas, where unpredictable and extreme weather conditions are now being felt.
Effects of climate change on farmers and agriculture that were cited in the consultation include: low/no yields, pests, diseases (animals and humans), low quality of crops, low prices of crops, low incomes, migration, and multiple burden on women.
Some of the actions taken by farmers to respond to these challenges are backyard gardening, food storage, diversified farming, organic farming, food sharing, use of traditional seeds; organizing for production, savings and income-generation and marketing activities; and engaging the government for needed policies and support.
AFA called on national governments to support sustainable agriculture done by small scale men and women farmers; put farmers at the forefront and let them participate in consultation and decision making bodies, implement responsive disaster management programs including timely and accurate weather forecasts, and provide resources for these to happen.
For international policy makers and institutions, AFA called for: gender sensitive policies, texts, declarations of world summits, in programs for agriculture; enhancement of capacities of women leaders at community, national and international levels; participation of women leaders in the principle of gender equality; financing for women farmers’ empowerment, conversion to sustainable agriculture, women-friendly technologies; building and strengthening of regional women’s farmers groups; training courses for women leaders; strengthening participation of women farmer leaders/AFA in international conferences, in partnership with WOCAN.
As part of its action plans, AFA works to: increase the knowledge of AFA members through the publication of issue papers and trainings on climate change; conduct more researches, and in more countries – on environment, climate change-resilient crops, local knowledge; conduct more farmers’ exchange visits; match training needs with expert resource; conduct more training and resource information and sharing of technologies for adaptation and mitigation; have sharing sessions on how members do certain things.
WOCAN response
Representatives from Women Organizing for Change in Agriculture and NRM (WOCAN) called on AFA to seize the exciting moment in climae change advocacy. Agriculture is in the agenda of climate change negotiations and women farmers we should look for space to empower themselves, along with their men farmer partners, by looking for men who are supportive of gender equality
WOCAN announced that it is facilitating AFA’s participation in the World Food Week in Rome on Oct 12-16, 2009. WOCAN is also facilitating AFA’s participation in the Copenhagen meeting.
FAO resonse
Representative from the FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (FAORAP) in Thailand emphasized that agriculture should be part of the solution to climate change. Since farmers are really at forefront of adaptation and mitigation measures on climate change, we should make sure that they get political space in climate change talks.
FAORAP added that famer organizations (FOs) have a role to play, especially as practitioners of organic agriculture, which is very important in carbon sequestration. The challenge however is how to aggregate the results.
FAORAP reminded AFA farmer leaders that there is still a lot of work to do after Copenhagen. The building blocks have been set during the Bali talks – adaptation, mitigation, financing, and technology. Messages should be clustered messages around these.
Lastly, FAORAP said that it will cooperate closely with AFA. Like AFA, FAO has food security in its major agenda. Thus, the need to act together.
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