GENDER MAINSTREAMING A KEY TOWARDS IMPROVEMENT IN AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION.

GENDER MAINSTREAMING A KEY TOWARDS IMPROVEMENT IN AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION.

RIC-NET staff joined the rest Agro ProFocus members for the annual gathering on 6^th February 2014. The purpose of the event is to engage the different partners of Agri-ProFocus Uganda Network under the different innovation communities and steering committees to;      Review the 2013 IC activities indicating the key highlights and moving forward to 2014,      Understand the Agri-ProFocus Innovation communities, Introduce the planned activities for 2014 and mark out timelines and possible areas of collaboration

RIC-NET plant Doctors offering farming information.

Innovative communities are Members of cooperation or organizations joined together with the aim being Knowledge sharing on development and practical issues involving to improve support towards promoting agriculture in Uganda. They involve Organization, farmers, individual’s access to finance, sustainable food production and gender value chain. They also Support new communities e.g. the youth in agric-business, regional trade, dairy and Irish potatoes.

One of the major roles of these innovative communities is Main streaming Gender in Agriculture.

Why main stream gender?

80% of Uganda population are rural based engaged in agriculture.70% of women in Uganda are involved in agriculture but not rewarded in addition to their reproduction roles in the family. Due to limited resources; women have no power, limited capacity, time and the inability of other stakeholders to recognize the role women play.

women sharing on Gender issues in farming.

In our innovative community, we collect and share information on; ongoing market prices, proper methods of agriculture production, data collection especially on sex segregation in production, analysis of age gaps that can help in policy formulation, planning and performance measures.

As the number of women involved in Agriculture is increasing we at RIC-NET look at three key areas where women can be helped; 

 a).Active social justice especially in women rights. This will also include opportunities, ownership and fairness in ownership). b).Alleviate poverty from ratio 2:1 women Vs men. Women are not empowered; women are more vulnerable to poverty based on their social biological aspects. c). Business opportunities by unlocking business potentials that are more profitable especially engaging in market oriented agricultural production.

With achieving these aspects production will increase, agriculture will be more enjoyable to both sexes including the youth, revenue at household level will increase due to increased food security and thus other social problems at household level involving ownership will go down.