Climate change affects everyone differently, regardless of age and gender, but women and men feel this impact in a different way, said secretary general of the Platform for Gender Equality and national gender specialist Nina Lozinschi. “Recent studies show the men and women play different roles in agriculture. Respectively, when we come with adjustment measures to ensure preparedness to cope with climate change, we should take into account this vulnerability and the played roles,” Nina Lozinschi stated in a press club meeting centering on adaptation to climate change in agriculture in the Republic of Moldova, IPN reports.
The specialist said the climate change is a crisis that has a different impact on men and women. “Studies show that women/girls are a more vulnerable group, especially those from rural areas, as their capacity to adjust to climate change is lower, also because the women take care of the house, the children and food for the family. They also look after agricultural lots near the house. How should a woman who takes care of her lot near the house change the working tools if she wants climate change adaptation practices for her garden? In this regard, they have insufficient knowledge and this disproportionality appears. How can we reach the women from rural communities with these messages?” asked the national gender specialist.
Nina Lozinschi noted that the men ensure production and revenues for the country or the region, while the women ensure food for their families. “The vulnerability derives from here. Owing to climate change, some have their incomes reduced, while the women have the food and existence sources reduced. Therefore, we should take into account one more phenomenon. The women and men are not all equal. There are women with disabilities and women who manage households themselves, women with many children, older woman and the resilience measures should be therefore designed individually, for each group separately, so that we do not leave anyone behind and do not contribute to wider gender inequality that continues to exist in our country, regrettably,” said the specialist.
According to her, the subsidies provided by the state cover products that are considered necessary and very useful for the food safety of the population, such as wheat and sunflower, while the women cultivate tomatoes, cucumbers and other vegetables and less financial assistance is provided in this case. Measures in support of the women working in agriculture were therefore taken. It goes to subsidies provided by the programs of the Agency for Intervention and Payments in Agriculture (AIPA) that are designed to support small entrepreneurs, including women. More should be yet done as many women in agriculture are not visible (only 37%) as their potential as business entities in agriculture is not developed and more changes are required here.
Nina Lozinschi recommended the women in agriculture who are at the beginning of their road to ask for financial support from AIPA and to apply to the programs implemented by the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Industry and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). These programs are not constant and the women should permanently follow them so as to identify the appearing opportunities. “The state can create a constant program available at any time and this would be a solution. The women can cooperate with banks and the female farmers in this case will not need to wait for a donor or a foreign partner to come to provide these loans,” she stated.
According to AIPA data, of all the recipients of subsidies last year, 18% represented women. The women who invested in agriculture received about 260 million lei from the state budget for the run businesses.
“I’m very glad that the number of women who have courage to invest in agriculture and have skills to efficiently manage businesses in this sector, which is not at all easy, has grown. The agricultural sector is exposed to climate change in addition to the other problems experienced by the entrepreneurs,” Minister of Agriculture and Food Industry Viorel Gherciu stated in the Gala of Women in Agriculture that was recently held in Chisinau.
The official noted that together with the development partners, the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Industry will do its best to implement new instruments to further encourage women to invest in this sector and to ensure value added, with new initiatives, with inspiration to diversify products.
In Moldova, over 800 women run agricultural businesses, down about 16% on the number of men managing agribusinesses. In 2021, female farmers started and managed 24 startups. Also, over 55% of the subsidized startups are run by female farmers.
