Agricultural Jobs Offer Independence, Status for Women

A unique survey conducted on thousands of women working in agricultural processing plants from several countries in Africa and India, found that the work offered them opportunities that exceeded financial benefits. Olam International, the agricultural supply chain and food ingredients company, found that women working in its cashew processing plants, said the work they were doing gave them confidence, independence and choices that they would normally not experience. Nearly six-thousand women were surveyed from Ivory Coast, Mozambique, Nigeria and Tanzania.

Middle East food security tracking tool launched

Researchers and civil society activists in the Arab world have always complained that a lack of information has contributed to poor policies on development and resource management. (..) “Now, aid workers and policymakers working on food security and looking for easy access to malnutrition data in Yemen, or how rainfall tends to vary in Syria, can turn to a handy web-based tool. (..) “It has been extremely difficult for the millions of people who were already struggling to feed their families before the unfolding events of the Arab Spring [and] more families now face the challenges of collapsing economies and lost jobs as a result of the instability,” said Abeer Etafa, a spokesperson of the World Food Programme.

The Women of the World are Depending on Us

Gender violence must cease to be a common currency, IDLO Director-General Irene Khan has said. (..) The WFP-hosted event, which focused on the negative impact of violence against women on food security, also heard from panelist Lourdes Tiban, an Ecuadorean lawmaker of indigenous descent. Gender violence, she said, is not ordained by destiny. (..) The event was opened by WFP Executive Director Ertharin Cousin. She later spoke to IDLO’s news editor, Andre Vornic, about the rationale behind today’s event. (..) "We keep doing the work. Every event like this is a stock-taking. It’s an opportunity to see whence we’ve come, what’s worked, what hasn’t worked, but most important, how we go forward. And what excites me about opportunities like today is that they energize people to say we are making progress, but we must do more. Because the women of the world are depending on us," said Ertharin Cousin.

Global food prices stable in February: UN agency

Global food prices remained stable in February from the previous month and wheat harvests are set to increase by 4.3 percentage points this year, the UN's food agency in Rome said on Thursday. The food price index compiled by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) remained at 210 points -- the same level as in January and five points lower than in February 2012. (..) Wheat production meanwhile was forecast to rise to 690 million tonnes this year, which would be the second largest global crop on record. This was mainly due to increased planting in Europe and a recovery in yield in some major producers like Russia and the United States.