Inclusive Farming Retreat, February 2025

Inclusive growth: Empowering Women and Youth in Rice Farming Retreat

Held on: 12^th to 14^th February 2025 in Nairobi

 

Background

Agriculture remains a critical sector in Sub-Saharan Africa, with rice farming playing a significant role in food security and economic development. However, gender and youth disparities persist, limiting the potential for inclusive growth. Recent studies highlight that female rice farmers face significant productivity gaps due to inequitable access to agricultural inputs, such as reliance on family labor and lack of high-yielding crops, and fertilizers. Additionally, youth in rural areas often struggle with limited access to land, finance, and digital technologies, which hampers their participation in agricultural innovation.

The Coalition for African Rice Development (CARD) aims to increase rice production in the region and provides a platform to promote an enabling environment working in collaboration with 32 Sub-Saharan African rice-producing countries, 14 Development Partners, 5 Regional Economic Communities (RECs), and South-South cooperation partners. Women and Youth inclusion aspect is one of the important areas that need to be further explored and practically addressed in the rice sector. The CARD Secretariat recognizes these issues and explores opportunities to raise awareness among the member countries.

It’s in this context that the CARD secretariat organized the first workshop from 12^th to 14^th February 2025 in Nairobi- Kenya, bringing together experts from Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), AfricaRice and International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) to discuss the need for and method of creating a “policy briefer” that will raise awareness, increase understanding and recognition of gender issues as well as foster equitable participation of women and youth in rice farming. The primary objectives of this retreat were:

1. To discuss and exchange views on inclusive farming on gender and youth in the rice sector
2. To develop a roadmap on how to formulate a policy brief to address this issue.

 

Workshop activities and outputs

1. Opening remarks

The Inclusive rice farming workshop commenced with a self-introduction of all the participants followed by an opening and welcoming remark from Mr. Ken Fujie, CARD secretariat General Coordinator. He cordially welcomed all the participants and proceeded to extensively highlight the background of CARD and the primary objective of the workshop, as well as expected outcomes.

2. Participants

The Inclusive rice farming workshop was attended by a total of 7 participants comprising four distinguished gender experts: Ms. Winnie Osulah from AGRA, Ms. Makiko Kubota from JICA, Dr. Gaudiose Mujawamariya from Africa Rice and Dr. Jummai Yila from IRRI.  Participants from the CARD secretariat included Mr Ken Fujie (CARD General Coordinator), Ms. Yuki Honjo (CARD Technical Coordinator) and Dr. Lilian Muasa (CARD Monitoring and Evaluation Advisor).

3. Discussions and drafting of the Policy Brief

To envision the objective of this workshop, the CARD Secretariat facilitated the discussion by experts from AGRA, JICA, AfricaRice, and IRRI. The experts kicked off the discussion by extensively sharing, exchanging views, and experiences on inclusive farming on gender and youth in the rice sector. The discussion pinpointed that women and youth inclusivity is an important topic in agriculture that needs to be further explored and practically addressed, particularly in the rice sector. It was highlighted that women and youth play a crucial role in many African rice-farming communities, from transplanting, weeding, paddy drying, harvesting, and post-harvest activities. In addition, several challenges that women and youth experience in the rice farming sector were also outlined. Subsequently, the participants discussed, drafted, and harmoniously agreed on a draft Policy brief outline and contents. Furthermore, the participants agreed to split into two groups, and each group was assigned two sections of the policy brief to work on. After completion of this exercise, the participants congregated, reviewed the output of each group, and discussed feasible recommendations to be included in the policy brief. The policy brief aims to raise awareness, increase understanding and recognition of gender issues as well as foster equitable participation of women and youth in rice farming.

4. Outcome of the workshop

During this workshop, the experts were able to generate the zero draft of the policy brief from the discussions and group work. The agreed contents of the policy brief are outlined below.

TITLE: Inclusive growth: Empowering women and Youth in rice farming

INTRODUCTION

1. WOMEN AND YOUTH CONTRIBUTIONS TO RICE FARMING IN AFRICA
2. CHALLENGES WOMEN AND YOUTH FACE IN RICE FARMING
   • Limited Access to Product Resources
   • Gender Bias in Agriculture Extension Services
   • Disproportionate Burden of Care Work
   • Exclusion from Decision-Making:
   • Climate Change Impacts
3. EMPOWERING WOMEN AND YOUTH; WHY IT MATTERS?

3-1. Enhancing Agricultural Productivity:

(1 ) Rice Farmer Credit Programs in Vietnam

(2) Closing the gender gap in Ethiopia

(3) The land certification program in Ethiopia

3-2. Promoting food security, nutrition and household livelihoods

(1) Case Study on Vietnam’s Women Farmer Cooperatives

(2) AfricaRice has led several innovations that have impacted the livelihoods of women

(3) Seed production in Odisha, India has brought significant changes in the lives of women farmers

3-3. Job Creation and Rural Economic Growth

(1) Case Study on Nigeria’s Rice Processing Program: 

(2) Case study of Ghana

(3) Case study of Vietnam 

(4) The youth Climate-Smart Farming Initiative in Uganda

(5) The PEJERIZ project 

3-4. Improved climate change resilience

(1) The Groundswell West Africa network’s Agroecology Plus Six program in the Sahel.

(2) The AICCRA program in Mali supports women’s access to solar-powered irrigation technologies

 

4. ILLUSTRATIVE STRATEGIES FOR INCLUSIVE RICE FARMING

Addressing Gender-Specific Constraints Socio-technical innovation bundles

(STIBs) for Empowerment:

(1) Enabling Environment

(2) Farmer Service Centers

5. RECOMMENDATION

 

Way forward

Upon adhering to the objectives of this workshop, the participants proposed and agreed on a roadmap to work and finalize the final policy brief draft by June 2025.