Deep Roots

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Image: WFP/Vanessa Vick

In Uganda, food purchased from P4P-supported smallholder farmers’ organizations are used in WFP’s emergency food distribution and

food and nutrition security programmes

loan qualifying criteria, enabling cooperative unions in

Ethiopia to access credit where they were often unable to

previously. FDCs have also been used in other P4P pilot

countries, allowing farmers’ organizations to access credit

at favourable interest rates.

Agriculture, nutrition and gender

Women face many challenges that can preclude them from

independently owning or managing land and productive

assets. In many households, men control the production and

marketing of crops as well as household finances. The P4P

pilot specifically targeted women farmers in order to address

the particular difficulties they face, with an ambitious goal to

have 50 per cent women participants. While P4P succeeded

in tripling women’s participation in P4P-supported farmers’

organizations during the pilot period, the experience demon-

strated that mere numerical participation does not directly

translate into a positive impact on the lives of women

farmers, nor provide them with the same financial gains as

their male counterparts.

Rather, P4P found that a variety of interventions were

necessary to empower women farmers, including context-

specific action plans, new methods for targeting women

farmers, including men in gender sensitization efforts and

providing women with time- and labour-saving technol-

ogy. In many cases, these efforts have assisted women to

gain increased voice and greater decision-making ability in

their homes and communities. Though these efforts yielded

results, in countries such as Ethiopia, cultural barriers and

traditional land tenure make it difficult for women to profit

from their work. Ensuring that women benefit economically

from P4P has been especially challenging in cases in which

women are not heads of households.

Through P4P and partners’ efforts, agricultural develop-

ment and nutrition have been linked, facilitating sustainable

improvements within rural households and communities.

Nutrition-sensitive approaches include improving small-

holders’ agricultural production, empowering women,

supporting resilience and providing access to nutrition

education. In countries such as Afghanistan and Guatemala,

P4P-supported smallholders market their crops to processors

and millers for the creation of fortified flour and nutritious

foods such as high-energy biscuits. Government investment

has been vital to these efforts, as has the involvement of the

private sector, which has committed to making purchases to

best benefit smallholder farmers.

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oots