About 200 women from the municipality of Sorriso and surrounding region attended the 8th Women of the Field Forum, especially dedicated to discussing the female role in the development of sustainable production strategies.
The event, sponsored by the Friends of the Earth Club (CAT Sorriso), one of the members of the PCI Regional Compact developed in the municipality with the support of IDH, included lectures, debates and success stories involving the role of women in the agribusiness world.
Through the presentation of various experiences, the forum addressed the role of women leading the business, with discussions ranging from legal and human resources management, to nutrition and quality of life, to family succession in business.
The female presence in agribusiness has been the subject of studies around the world, in an attempt to understand their contribution, challenges and opportunities. A survey released this year by the Centre for Advanced Studies in Applied Economics (Cepea) at USP’s Luiz de Queiroz College of Agriculture (Esalq) found that between 2004 and 2015, the number of women in agribusiness increased by 8.3 %.
In addition to being more present, the vacancies occupied by the female population are better. The participation of female workers with a higher education degree in the area went from 7.6% to 15% in the period. On the other hand, vacancies for uneducated female employees fell from 11.3% to 5.6%.
Another survey by the Brazilian Agribusiness Association (Abag) pointed out that women who work in agribusiness are responsible for managing at least 30% of the segment. If we consider that agribusiness represents 25% of the Brazilian GDP, women within this sector of the economy are responsible for managing at least 8% of the national GDP, around USD 165 billion.
With such performance, challenges also arise for women to receive the support needed to play this role.
In this regard, IDH is piloting a comprehensive gender tool globally to further understand this dynamics in its work. With the support of IDH Farmfit Intelligence, we worked with Dalberg Advisors to design a Gender Tool, which can be used by our teams and service providers to carry out internal gender analysis at different points, with collection of data to improve its understanding, identify opportunities to address gender gaps, highlight potential interventions, and track outcomes.
In Sorriso, IDH supports the PCI Regional Compact, a multi-stakeholder initiative, still in the early stages of implementation, aimed at increasing sustainable production, restoring areas and supporting small-scale farmers for environmental and land legalization.
“During the Forum, we had testimonials from many successful women – of various age groups and who faced many challenges. I see that these experiences can add a lot of value to the Regional Compact, especially because the municipality has had a 12% growth, and we, the women in agribusiness, have a good contribution to this success,” said the president of the Friends of the Land of Sorriso Club ( CAT), Dudy Paiva.