Abstract
Women's empowerment is essential in achieving global food security while being prioritised as one of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) agenda. Even though a women’s empowerment role in agriculture received wide attention in works of literature, there is still a research gap about women’s empowerment in Malaysia's agriculture. This study contributes to the status of women’s empowerment and its determinants, as well as challenges to enhance women’s empowerment among rice smallholders in Selangor, Malaysia. By using a framework adapted from the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI), 200 smallholder paddy farmers were selected using stratified random sampling. The results revealed vital domains that contributed to women’s empowerment, which provided access to extension services and led to effective decision-making, whereas leadership displayed a negative association. The lack of participation in the planning process and community groups were significant obstacles in enhancing the women's empowerment among rice farmers. These results suggested the scope of possible interventions and policy recommendations to enhance women’s empowerment in agriculture.
Highlights
Rice is produced in over 112 countries worldwide and the world’s third-largest agricultural commodity behind sugarcane and maize with China and India being the two largest rice producers, which produce over 146 and 103 million tons of rice, respectively (Abaide et al, 2019)
This study addressed women’s empowerment and its challenges in rice production
Our results revealed that women’s empowerment was vital to increase rice productivity as they actively engaged in a variety of tasks related to rice cultivation
Summary
Rice is produced in over 112 countries worldwide and the world’s third-largest agricultural commodity behind sugarcane and maize with China and India being the two largest rice producers, which produce over 146 and 103 million tons of rice, respectively (Abaide et al, 2019). Women actively engaged in a wide variety of tasks related to cultivation (Haimid et al, 2016) They produced more than 50 per cent of the world's food and contributed to approximately 43% of the world's agricultural labour force (Akter et al, 2017). As in other parts of Asian countries, women were vital in the production of staple food and engaged in various tasks related to cultivation (Singh et al, 2015). Their essential role in farming and improving the quality of rural areas often remain hidden due to insufficient empowerment for women (Haimid et al, 2016). Women in the Malaysian agriculture sector statistically recorded negative growth, and they face barriers to accessing resources and productivity in the agriculture sector (Haimid et al, 2016)
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