Home > Empowering women in the food industry

While gender equality is a worldwide concern, the food industry has made progressive changes in recent years, particularly when it comes to promoting gender splits in workforces. Many Company reported having 30.0 to 50.0 percent women participation in its workforce.

However, while some companies seem to be food industry front runners when it comes to their workforce gender split, others are still lagging behind. In fact, in one of the Company report, “women account for the vast majority of food-purchasing decisions in the US and also make up almost half the entry-level workforce in the food industry, yet women are underrepresented across the board above this level”.

In today’s world, women occupy various roles in the food industry, from farm to fork, research to education. With this in mind, celebrating their significance in an industry that gives the planet the energy it needs to continue to make changes.

Why Women?

Women participate in all aspects of the food system, from farming and research to trade and marketing to entrepreneurship, leadership and caring for family members. Yet they face multiple constraints in many of these activities.

When women advance, it has a multiplier effect throughout their families and communities: Studies show that women are more likely than men to reinvest their income back into their household to support the family’s nutrition, health and education.

Recently, it was experimentally confirmed that women’s empowerment is a pathway by which a nutrition-sensitive programme could improve children’s nutritional status. Empowering women benefits them, their families, and the overall economy.

Women’s contributions to agriculture and food security:

Producers:

• unpaid or paid workers
• employees or employers
• on- or off-farm wage labourers

Beside food production, women play key roles in:

• agri-food processing and marketing
• unpaid care and domestic work, incl. food preparation and reduction of food waste

Investing In Women:

Feed the Future helps women—as business owners, farmers, health workers and more—overcome barriers and constraints to reaching their full potential.

For example, we help women:

• Access agricultural inputs, technologies, markets and information.
• Increase their participation and decision-making roles both in the household and in community groups.
• Gain greater access to financial and business services so they can grow their businesses.

Key Areas of Support:

The adoption of a coherent approach to promote gender equality and climate resilience in food systems development interventions is key for the subprogramme and focuses on three main actions:

Institutional support: Reinforcing institutional capacities to develop efficient, gender-sensitive and climate-resilient agri-food value chains at local, regional and national level.

Capacity development: Strengthening the productive and entrepreneurial capacities of women operating along selected value chains through tailor-made training and improved service provision.

Knowledge products: Documenting and sharing promising practices and successful approaches across regions to increase knowledge and evidence base on gender, food systems and resilience in SIDS.

What does it mean to be a woman working in the food industry?

• Working in an industry, especially the diversity, pace and the fact it is such an important part of our national infrastructure.
• As a woman working in the food industry, feel a great sense of responsibility and pride in the work that they do.
• Their passion for food and nutrition has led them to dedicate their career to improving the health and wellbeing of young people through access to healthy and nutritious food.

For more information, please Chat with us Ask The Expert.