Rural Women Speak Out
The Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD) salutes the women from the rural communities for keeping the rivers flowing, for keeping the trees dancing with the wind, for keeping food as we know it. APWLD celebrates their courage and fortitude as they live their lives with dignity and beauty in the face of poverty, hunger, environmental destruction, violence, discrimination. Our solidarity is with you, women, who stand at the frontier of the powerful challenges to the essence of life, as you face these, and win over them. On this occasion, let us listen to what the women from the rural communities within Asia have to say.
Umsun Tashtemoriya, making bread in their traditional stove (Kirgsholk village, Ysalata, Kyrgyzstan)
Rizal, Philippines Nagpapasalamat dahil sa pagkilala ng lipunan sa ambag nila sa ekonomiya lalo na sa industriya ng agrikultura; sana magkaroon ng sapat na pagkain dahil ang kababaihan ang pangunahing nag-iisip ng pagkain para sa mga anak at pamilya; para sa gobyerno, sana may magandang programa sa mga magsasaka para wala nang magugutom Am grateful that society recognizes our economic contribution, particularly in the agricultural industry. I wish that there will be enough food for us, as it is the women who primarily think of food for the children and the family. I ask the government to have a good program for us farmers so there will be no more hunger.
Thai women farmers Isan, Thailand แม่หิง ....สู่วิถีชีวิต...ผูกพัน.......สืบสานสัฒนธรรมท้องถิ่น Women ....resume sustainable livelihood! remain committed and carry on the local traditional culture and knowledge!
Sajikumari / S. Sujatha / Radhika women organic farmers in Kovalam, Kerala, India On the occasion of World Rural Women’s Day and World Food Day, we the women belonging to Kovalam, a small village in the State of Kerala, India, share our concern about the way our right to produce safe food and keep our environment intact for our children is taken away by the governments and big companies. While we are trying to rejuvenate our land and water by taking away hazardous pesticides and fertlizers and other toxic materials and trying to protect our seeds, we understand that our national government is in the process of giving permission to genetically modified food crops like Bt Brinjal, Golden rice, GM potatoes and GM mustard. This is a violation of our fundamental right to produce our food which is culturally and ecologically appropriate to our life. We, who have the capability to produce good quality food for our country totally oppose this introduction of genetically modified seeds which are proved to be hazardous to environment and our own health and which are owned by multinational companies. On this day, we declare our village as a GM-Free village where we will not allow any genetically modified seed to enter our village and genetically modified food to enter our kitchen and we the producers of non-chemical food will start spreading this message to our sisters, both producers and consumers of our state.
 TAUGYA Chittagong Hill Tribes
Mae Jot, Thailand Although there are days like rural women’s day and world food day, and are celebrated worldwide, Karen woman like me from Burma who is in the same struggles with the fellow migrants from Burma, do not even know that these days exist. Instead of taking days off and celebrating on these days designated for us, we have to work for 14 hours everyday. If we do not work one day, we will not be able to feed ourselves that day. We do not have time to celebrate and think about these because our immediate worry is not about celebration, but the next meal and security. October 15, 2006 Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD) Rural and Indigenous Women Task Force Women and Environment Task Force Chiang Mai, Thailand www.apwld.org For more contribution of photos and thoughts of rural women for the World Rural Women’s Day, please send them to judyp@apwld.org / val@apwld.org WORLD RURAL WOMENS DAY AND WORLD FOODLESS DAY
On the occasion of World Rural Women’s Day and World Food Day, peasants, indigenous peoples and food producers in the Cordillera unite with peasants, indigenous peoples and food producers of the country and of the world in asserting our rights to land and food. World Rural Women’s Day resulted from the UN Conference for Women in Beijing in September 1995 to obtain recognition and support for rural women’s multiple roles as farmers and food producers. Rural women comprise more than a quarter of the world’s population. World Food Day was proclaimed in 1979 by the Conference of the Food and Agriculture Organizations (FAO), aimed at heightening public awareness of the world food problem and strengthen solidarity in the struggle against hunger, malnutrition and poverty. Where are we now on the 11th year of World Rural Women’s Day and on the twenty seventh years after the declaration of World Food Day? Experts on the world food stituation say that there are 854 million hungry people on our planet or 1 out of six people is hungry. Around 500 million of hungry people are found in Asia. In the Philippines, one of every 5 Filipinos is hungry at least in a day while more than half rank themselves poor (SWS 2005). More than half of these figures are women and girls. For more than 27 years, we were made as experimental grounds for development programs and technology which have been developed purportedly to eradicate hunger and poverty. The reality is that these programs only worsened the hunger and poverty situation as these are mainly designed for profit. These programs are packaged to advance the intent of Green Revolution where genetically engineered crops, high-value crops and genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) have been developed, promoted and proliferated by national governments with support from the governments of the US, European Union, Japan along with the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, World Trade Organization and agro-chemical transnational companies. Instead of solving world hunger and poverty, these programs have capitalized on our remaining resources.. Commercial agriculture has made us dependent to agricultural inputs and production systems of agro-chemical transnational companies. What is there to celebrate when land and food resources are taken away from rural woman and the peasants? In the Cordillera, we will assert RICE over MINES and FOOD over GOLD. The country’s main staple-- rice, faces threat from cheap rice imports as a result of the national government’s commitment to the WTO. Rice and agricultural production is left to the peasants with little or no support at all from government. The intensification of commercial agriculture that is promoted by GMA’s Agricultural Modernization Program has worsened the existing feudal and semi-fedual exploitation of peasants where land rent, high interest rates and prices of agricultural inputs continue to soar while prices of agricultural products, wages of farm workers and livelihood conditions continue to dip. Rice production in the Cordillera in 2004 as reported by the Bureau of Agricultural Statistics is 108% rice sufficient. The rice production for the region was 355,755 metric tons which was more than enough to feed a 1.6 million population. But, rice imports has reached even the province of Kalinga, the Cordillera’s rice granary. Data from the National Food Authority (NFA) revealed that the share of the Cordillera from rice imports for year 2005 is 402,00 cavans and 200,00 cavans has already been distributed. Rice importation is expected to increase with the full implementation of WTO this year adding further misery to the already burdened rice farmers. The price of rice continue to increase even with the influx of cheap imported rice:
Peasants engaged in vegetable production continue to loss their protection from unrelenting dumping of cheap vegetable imports. The GMA government has exchanged rice and our agriculture to the mines by selling out more than 60% of the Cordillera land to mining companies. GMA has prioritized gold for mining companies more than food for the communities. We decry these conditions which made us even hungrier and poorer. Yet, when we cry over our hunger and poverty, when we defend our land, food and natural resources, we face the terror of the state. We have become targets of GMA’s Operation Bantay Laya which to this day resulted to the murder of hundreds of peasants, rural women and indigenous peoples all over the country since GMA assumed power in 2001. Thousands have been widowed, orphaned and left grieving over a loss of a relative, friend, village mate and leader. This is GMA’s cruel action when we assert our right to land and food. As we worked for the survival of generations of human race, we will not allow ourselves to be defeated by state terrorism and never will we bow down to the capitalist greed on our land and food resources. Innabuyog-GABRIELA Cordillera, APIT TAKO (Alliance of Peasants in the Cordillera Homeland)
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