Main Goal of Farming

Throughout the history of Agriculture, main goal of farming, is to provide enough food for everyone. Now the world produces enough food for every single person of about 2700 calorie diet a day, which is more than enough for average people. But it’s kind of ironic and illogical that world hunger still exist affecting human history and is the leading cause of deaths per year. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that about 805 million people in the world were suffering from chronic food deprivation and undernourishment.

Every nights Millions of people still go to bed empty stomach. Poverty trap, lack of agriculture investment, infrastructure, natural disaster ,Climate change, Food price surge, Resource discrimination ,war and conflict are the top cause of world hunger . A data and statistics of Food and Agriculture organization shows that the most of the world’s hungry people live in developing nations compared to that in developed countries. Hunger is approximately distributed among people in developing countries as 578 million people in Asia and the pacific,239 million people in Sub-Saharan African,53 million in Latin America and Caribbean,37 million men and women in the Near East and North Africa. Mostly the women, children and those living in the rural are more susceptible to the undernourishment.

Hunger season have become the norm in many part of the world and women bear the brunt of this food shortage .Globally, about 60 percent of people who go hungry are female. Nearly half a billion women and girls do not have access to the nutritious food they need for healthy, active lives. Women around the world face unequal treatment,inhibited by social, political and economic barriers. According to the UN Development Program (UNDP), discriminatory laws represent one of many obstacles holding back women’s economic participation. Social norms, lack of autonomy, and limited access to assets , credit, extension and training services all play part.FAO statistics suggest male headed households are typically 10-20 percent more likely to use credit than female headed households.

Lack of access to credit may be important reason why women are generally slower to adopt new agricultural technologies or even use basic inputs such as fertilizers .Also in Africa, women do not normally engaged in ploughing. Furthermore in many countries the title to land is normally held by men members of family, it is rare for the women to hold title. These Gender gaps are pervasive across the world. Compared to men, women farmers tend to have lower productivity, smaller plots, and grow less profitable crops. They are more likely to work in temporary and part-time jobs, and less likely to be promoted. This unpaid work takes time away from working outside the home or getting an education which directly endanger food sovereignty as well as food security of women. Across advanced economies, women earn 16 percent less than men, even in the same occupations, hold fewer senior positions, and account for fewer entrepreneurs. Consequently, they face multiple constraints in many activities they purse ,keeps them highly dependent on men and shackles them in poverty and hunger.

According to the United Nations, Nepalese women remain at the lower end of the scale of the Human Development Index (HDI) and the Gender Inequality Index (GII) in South Asia. The general immunisation, health, and nutrition situation of women in Nepal remains very poor, particularly in rural areas. Statistics show that one out of every 24 Nepali women will die during pregnancy or child birth, making reproductive health care a major focus of intervention. gender gaps in literacy, enrollment and attainment offer a clear picture of gender disparity in the educational sector. However, 40 percent of women are economically active, but their role as manual labourers and mentors is discounted. Limited access to education and productive assets such as property and credit confines many to menial jobs in the agricultural sector. Working women are often self-employed, but cannot rise above subsistence farming without credit or training in modern farming practices .

According to the World Food Programme current policy that a world with Zero Hunger can only be achieved when everyone has equal opportunities, equal access to resources, and equal voice in the decisions that shape their households, communities and societies .Women play a critical role in addressing hunger ,malnutrition ,poverty and household food security . They comprise an average of 43 per cent of the agricultural labour force across the developing world making up the backbone of the agricultural sector and food production systems and the bulk of the agricultural labours. Eight out of ten agricultural workers in Africa are women and in Asia six out of ten are women. Within the agricultural sector ,it is estimated that if women had equal access to productive resources they will increase their yields by 20-30% , potentially reducing the number of hungry people in the world by 12-17 %. For example,in Ghana and Malawi ,giving women farmers the same resources as men increased maize production by more than 15% and in Burkina Faso ,simply reallocating fertilizer and labor to women resulted in a six percent production gain.

World Food Programme estimates that If women farmers had the same access to resources as men, the number of hungry in the world could be reduced by up to 150 million. Many organizations working for food security and hunger eradication such as FAO, World Economic forum, World Bank and other international conventions all have concluded that investing in women farmers is one of the effective strategies for reducing hunger and poverty in the world.On the brighter side studies shows that countries

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