Women and Food Sovereignty
Women are key
actors to world food security. FAO estimates increase of food production by
women by 30—40% can reduce global hunger by 12—17%. Meanwhile, 240 million
Indonesians also depend heavily on female farmers, amounting to about 65% of
total number of farmers in Indonesia.
Women in
agriculture involve from land preparation to post-harvest. Women are also known
to have important role in selecting and exchanging seeds between villages.
SERUNI in Teluk Kabupaten Batang village, Jambi province on around 1970, and
the majority of women in the village exchanges seeds from one village to
another. They planted local seeds, such as jelatik
rice and gold needles.
According to
women in Teluk village, planting local seeds like jelatik and gold needs makes bigger profits and produces more
nutritious foods because local seeds adapt with weather change without having
to use chemical pesticides and fertilizer intake.
“We used to
just burn thatch and dry grass mixed with lemongrass leaves and ginger. Smoke
from burning the lemongrass leaves and ginger is potent to repel pests in the rice” said Sarah, telling her
experience to SERUNI.
But the story
and experience of the women above did not last long since the government
intensively introduced transgenic seeds by forcing farmers to produce
transgenic seeds that require higher production costs. Since then, hundreds of
farmers failed to harvest because of the difficulties faced on repelling pests
and so, forced to use chemical pesticides and fertilizers.
As a result,
poverty became rampant almost throughout the countryside in Indonesia.
Structurally, the cause of the poverty is the Indonesian government regime’s
partiality on seed corporations owned by imperialism. In a short time, Syngenta,
Monsanto, and DuPont Company succeeded in destroying the farmers’ seeds and
more than 10.000 rice seed varieties. Around 90% of hybrid corn seeds are
controlled by multinational companies, one control about 45 seeds circulating in Indonesia.
Monopoly by
horticultural seed and agricultural companies in Indonesia intensifies and increases for World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Agreement
on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) gives full control to multinational
corporations to dominate market’s commodity harvest, transgenic seeds, and
chemical fertilizers.
Overall, WTO
along with other regional and bilateral agreements have allowed TNCs to become
referees of agriculture and food policy in Indonesia. This caused the
increasing loss of public recognition of women’s knowledge and skill as the deciding subject, nurturing local seeds
traditionally in rural areas.
In addition,
the dominance of agricultural technology tools that has been going on since the
Green Revolution until now has been making female farmers lost their jobs in
the land. Effective use of huller
(motor grinder) has shifted the traditional role of women in the countryside as
the stackers of rice. Food Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimated that the
introduction of hullers in Java has resulted in 1.2 million women who did not
have land lost their jobs.
The presence of
agricultural products belonging to the developed countries is the face of the
crisis of overproduction in agricultural products where imperialist domestic
products flood the domestic market is also dependent on food import schemes.
In fact, the
panic over the world food crisis is more
caused by speculation in order to take advantage of the food commodity trade.
Therefore, food commodity prices are more likely to fluctuate and make increase
of food price unrelated to production reality.
Every year, the
increase in food prices causes women to further limit household expenditure
needs. Women as mothers and wives will always prioritize the most nutritious food
for their husbands and children. Women will usually eat leftovers, ignoring
their own health and diet.
Cheap Labour
In a state
system that advocates a semi-feudal economic order, the livelihood of women
will be much more difficult. This is because the state is the main instrument
that prioritizes imperialist interests perpetuate the patriarchal culture
rooted in society.
The form is
stereotype or label of women as weak labour, justifying it with women are not
head of family and only works to help their family.
Hence,
corporations and landlords employ female farmers with lower wage than male
farmers. Gender pay gap is 14.5% — 14.5% less than male farmers.
The table above
illustrates how the gap between female and male farmers’ wage range from around
Rp10.000 (under 1USD) per day with the same type of work. However, pay
discrimination is considered normal because women are perceived to have “lighter”
work.
The “lighter”
work is, for example, hoeing, while male farmers carry the spraying machine.
However, in the same area, there are women who also carry the spraying machine.
Is not the essence of all work is the same, that is an activity that produces
new value, both social and agricultural work.
In the content
of agricultural labour, the work of women in hoeing and men carrying fertilizer
or pesticide spraying machines, on the essence of the value of work is not
different at all. This is because those are just methods of producing
agricultural production. If the essence of all work is the same, then there is
no reason to justify pay gap between female and male farmers.
Amidst the work
burden that women must bear, after working on the land women should run
“obligations” as wives and as mothers to watch children and serve their
husbands at home. Thus, the majority of women do not have enough time to rest
and develop their capacity in social activities.
In addition,
the burden of women multiply for women also have to face the risk of losing
land. This is because the Jokowi government’s development program still relies
on development based on natural resource management. Therefore, lands of smallholder’s develop into
large-scale land commodity. There are seven food commodities that can be
converted into energy raw materials, such as soybean, corn, wheat, jathropa,
cassava, and palm oil.
Under the
government of Jokowi-Yusuf Kalla, Indonesia makes biofuels a prima donna
business because the imperialists continue to invest in grants and debts to
Indonesia. Meanwhile, to ensure their interest, police and military personnel
are used to secure companies, even with killing, shooting, and terrorizing the
farmers.
Aside of
violence, Jokowi Widodo and Yusuf Kalla government also use dividing land
through a redistribution and legislation program of 9 million hectares of land,
and achieving the target of 12.7 million hectares for Social Forestry
allocation, such as Community Forest (HKM), Village Forest (HD), and Community Plantation Forest (HTR).
The practice of
Jokowi’s Agrarian Reform Program is distributing HGU landowners’ former HGU
(large plantations), the landowners’ neglected land (large plantation), open
land access to big landowners, such as PERHUTANI to poor farmers by intercropping,
PHBM, and partnership.
Thus, land
monopoly by landlords will increase
in exploiting female farmers. The scheme can’t even break the chain of land
ownership that has been the right of men. Women are increasingly losing the
sovereignty of food crops and medicinal plants that become preferred the whole
family is sick.
This means
setbacks for women’s lives correlates with the loss of land as a source of
living of women. In fact, what is meant to be a practice of removing feudalism
and imperialism results in declining women’s rights of land as a source of live.
Women are more likely to be vulnerable because of the limited access and
service of health and education.
Women’s Statement and Demands on Food
The root of
food problem is on the inequality of land tenure and agrarian resources. By
definition, agrarian reform is an attempt to reform the agrarian structure by
eliminating the monopoly of land tenure and agrarian resources by distributing
land and agrarian resources to farmers, both men and women.
For women,
agrarian reform gives a more concrete of guarantee rather than economic and
political rights. This means women have an adequate base in terms of
participation and economic and political rights. It is this basis that will
sustain the women’s movement in general to annul all forms of discrimination,
to destroy the patriarchal foundation in the political, economic, and cultural
fields. In the context of women’s advocacy, agrarian reform seeks to dismantle
all forms of discriminatory relations.
No monopoly
will be the foundation of the implementation of rural democracy.
Democratization in social relations will be the antithesis of discrimination
towards women. Thus, it is impossible agrarian reform movement to be carried
out without including the interests of the women’s movement. The women’s movement
shall be actively involved in the agrarian reform movement. Both are
prerequisites that are each related and inseparable.
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