ECVC Women’s Articulation send open letter to Hansen on position of women in the Vision for Agriculture and Food
This open letter was originally published on the ECVC website
Dear Commissioner Hansen, Dear Ms Gafo Gomez-Zamalloa
In the context of 8 March, International Day of Women, the Women’s Articulation of European Coordination Via Campesina would like to react to the recent Vision for Agriculture and Food proposed by the European Commission.
For the first time in the 2023-27 CAP, gender equality and the increased participation of women in agriculture was included as a specific objective of the CAP.
Indeed, women have played a key role in building resilient agricultural systems in particular based on agroecological farming practices that not only improve food production but also work in harmony with nature. And yet, women in agriculture continue to face marginalization and invisibility in the agricultural sector, suffering various forms of discrimination and structural barriers such as unequal access to resources, public and professional services, and formal education, which are preventing their full economic and social participation in the sector and involvement in local organizations, as well as in public and decision-making spaces. Finally, they are disproportionately affected by the central issues that saw farmers take to the streets last year.
It is therefore time to take action to make the CAP gender equality objective a reality. Below, the Women’s Articulation of the ECVC outline specific, concrete action that must be taken to shape the Vision for Agriculture and Food in order to address existing inequalities:
“Women in Farming platform”
ECVC welcomes the Vision’s announcement of the launch of the “Women in Farming platform” to “strengthen women’s engagement and equal opportunities in the farming sector”. However, the European Commission must address the root causes of farmers issues overall, which disproportionately affect women. It is crucial that women, youth and other marginalised groups are structurally and consistently consulted, rather than creating siloed, symbolic processes. Furthermore, women must be guaranteed the necessary conditions to participate in such policy spaces, including the provision of interpretation and travel costs, and by taking into account childcare, which remains a gendered issue and that disproportionately hinders women’s participation.
Market regulation to ensure fair prices for farmers
The European Commission must ensure the prices paid to farmers cover production costs, including social security contributions and a decent wage for farmers and farm workers. This should be implemented via fast-track procedure in the Unfair Trading Practices Directive and the revision of the Common Market Regulation. This issue is particularly important for women farmers as they are currently often excluded from equal access to social security contributions due to factors such as male farm ownership, the lack of recognition for their work on family farms, and the unpaid care work they undertake. Hence a decent revenue is crucial.
Integrating an Intersectional gender perspective in the CAP, NSPs and CAP budget
Some CAP announcements go in the right direction, such as capping, degressivity, and a particular attention to mixed farms, farms in areas with natural constraints, and young and new farmers. However, the CAP must be revised to integrate an intersectional gender perspective in its design and implementation. According to European Commission data, men receive 60% of CAP income subsidies, while women receive just 12% (European Court of Auditors, 2019) despite managing 29% of farms in the EU. This highlights structural inequalities in capital access.
One reason for this is that the current hectare-based system for CAP subsidies favors large industrial farms over diversified smaller and/or agroecological farms. This directly discriminates against women, who on average have smaller farms than their male counterparts (6.4ha against 14.4ha). Subsidies should support small and medium-scale farms, diversified practices and foresee specific support for new entrants, and particularly to women farmers who face structural barriers such as limited access to land or loans.
The European Union and the member states at national level should facilitate gender-responsive budgeting within the CAP and the NSPs. Women in agriculture face significant challenges in accessing financial resources. Budgetary requirements must consider the realities of women owned, managed and labour-intensive farms, which often operate differently from those of men.
Additionally, in future reforms of the CAP, gender equality should be a specific and dedicated objective and should be mandatory in all CAP National Strategic Plans.
Access to land
We welcome the launch of the EU Observatory on Farmland, but in order to facilitate access to land for women we demand the collection of disaggregated data by gender and other key agricultural indicators to better track disparities and inform policy making in this regard.
It is important to recognise that the inequalities in land access are also deeply rooted in unequal and gendered patterns of inheritance and land acquisition. Furthermore, women in agriculture are often undertaking nature care work such as seed savings or soil preservation. Hence, the increasing cost of land due to land speculation coupled with other rising costs linked to patented NGT seeds and expensive digital solutions threatens to drive more and more women out of agriculture. Therefore, an EU Land Directive must be introduced to facilitate access to land at an EU level for women, as well as youth, new entrants and landless people.
Social conditionality
The social conditionality, an important improvement under the last CAP reform, is becoming obligatory in 2025 for all EU member states requiring beneficiaries of CAP subsidies to respect European social and labour law. The respect of rural workers’ rights is important for women and in particular for women migrant rural workers who are regularly exposed to vulnerable working conditions and in some cases to harassment in the work place[1].
Yet, the social conditionality clause does not apply to operational funds through which fruit and vegetable sectors are mainly subsidised and where many women and women migrant workers are employed[2]. It is important that social conditionality applies to all EU funding.
Furthermore, the EU should assess critically the national strategic plans (NSPs) through which member states are supposed to implement social conditionality as well as taking up direct responsibility for sanctioning beneficiaries not respecting the provisions. There should be -a complaint mechanism for unions and affected workers to report infringements (see ECVC publication[3]).
The ECVC Women’s Articulation is committed to defending the rights of women farmers and agricultural workers and will continue to work towards gender equality and equity in rural and agricultural policy in the spirit of article 4 of the United Nations Declaration on Rights of Peasants and other people working in rural areas on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against peasant women and other women working in rural areas.
We look forward to working constructively with you and your Cabinet in order to achieve this goal.
Sincerely,
On behalf of the ECVC Women Articulation,
Alessandra Turco, ECVC Coordination Committee