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Food sovereignty workshop in West Africa champions women agricultural workers

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ED Knight
WVoN co-editor 

Women’s roles in food production were examined this week in a four-day workshop in Accra, Ghana, as part of the Regional Agricultural Investment Programme of ECOWAS, a group of 15 West African states.

The workshop aims to empower the farmers of the region, as well as lobby international bodies to legislate against what it claims are the damaging practices of agro-industrial corporations.

Speaking at the workshop, Bernard Guri, Executive Director of the Centre for Indigenous Knowledge and Organisational Development, said:

“We must begin to look for African solutions by way of adopting what we call the endogenous development approach. This means, let’s start with what our local farmers know best and have used to feed us all these years.”

The workshop argues that women’s roles in agriculture have been diminished by the industrialisation of agricultural processes, so in order to reach food self-sufficiency a return to more localised, traditional modes of agriculture, combined with modern farming techniques, is required.

Guri went on to say that “what we Africans should be advocating for is food sovereignty and not food security – for we are the solution to our own food crisis.”

The notion of food sovereignty was coined by the Via Campesina movement at the 1996 World Food Summit, and has since been presented as an alternative to neoliberal policies of food production and distribution.

The movement contends that such policies increase the dependence of poorer nations on agricultural imports from richer ones, as large corporations are able to undercut the price of locally produced food, resulting in crippled agriculture sectors in already poor nations.

This practice is known as ‘dumping’, and significant government subsidies for European and US farmers have further encouraged its use.

The fundamental link between women, food production and the self-determination of peoples has gained momentum in recent years. Via Campesina has member organisations across the world, including nearly every Western European nation. There are as yet no fully ratified members in the United Kingdom.

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