During a recent fireside conversation at the U.N. Climate Change Conference, Sandra Uwera, Global CEO, Fairtrade International promoted the benefits of creating a safety net for farmers. The conversation was co-organized by Food Tank and the Food and Agriculture Pavilion.
“Challenges of climate adaptation are rife in the market,” Uwera says.
Fairtrade International works with farmers to help them adopt sustainable production practices while guaranteeing a fair income for their labor. Uwera explains that Fairtrade carries out this work through regional producer networks, set up to support member producers. The networks offer capacity building, knowledge and technology sharing, and more to help farmers increase their resilience.
When farmers adopt new techniques, including intercropping—the practice of growing different climate-friendly plants such as yams or cassava among their crops—they can not only improve the sustainability of their production methods. They also have the opportunity to diversify their incomes.
Fairtrade also established the Women’s School of Leadership, a project in West Africa that promotes sustainability by increasing gender equity. The program teaches women to negotiate, bargain, and engage with commercial partners. “We are getting women out of a mindset of just being household drivers, to become women who are able to address challenges within their communities and be more included…to become women in trade,” Uwera says.
Still, women in agriculture continue to struggle to access finance, which Uwera says is “one of the key challenges” for them. “It means we have to sensitize the commercial banks, the financial sector to take this into consideration. So we advocate for a rights based approach for access to finance for women.”
“When you empower a woman, you empower an entire community.”
Watch the full conversation below.
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