With Jamaican women having known to have long stood shoulder to shoulder with their male counterparts as ‘players’ in the country’s agricultural sector, concerns are being expressed over what is felt to be a condition of gender prejudice that underlines unequal access to resources necessary for them to match their male counterparts in terms of growth in the sector. A report in the Wednesday November 8 issue of the Jamaica Observer alluded to women farmers using the occasion of a forum titled, ‘The Roots and Tubers National Dialogue’, hosted by the World University Service of Canada (WUSC) Caribbean, under the Sustainable Agriculture in the Caribbean (SAC) Project to voice concerns over what they regard as unequal access to resources necessary for them to match their male counterparts in terms of their accomplishments in the farming sector. The newspaper reported that, in the course of the forum, women farmers were unequivocal in their feelings of being “underserved in the farming industry, particularly when it comes to accessing agricultural lands and resources.”
The view of the women is that “men are usually given first preference when they apply to lease or purchase agricultural lands, while women are sidelined,” one woman farmer who spoke at the forum is reported to have said. The woman, named in the Observer report as Wendy Mitchell, reportedly spoke on the need for “equal opportunities for both genders, acknowledging the limited availability of agricultural lands” in the country. “There is a bias in favour of men in land acquisition, and it needs to be removed to ensure women get the same opportunity to access land and land tenancy,” the woman is reported to have told the forum. She also reportedly told the forum about what she felt were “insufficient training opportunities, often without proper follow-up” as well as “bias in government incentive programmes, which tend to favour large male farmers.”
