Women face multiple constraints in the Ivorian rice value chain. The rice partnership union and 2SCALE thus seek to provide concrete solutions to mitigate the challenges so that women can access and control necessary productive resources, while improving their income and being able to make their free choices in activities.
Women in rice production
Women have a strong presence in the production activity. It allows them not only to generate more income, but also for subsistence in their respective households, thus contributing to food security. However, access to land, improved inputs or training are major constraints that hinder their participation and slow down the increase of their number in this sector.
Women are very few landowners in rural areas in Côte d'Ivoire. Some producers rent the land in exchange for part of the harvest. In Agboville for instance, when they share land between farmers, the community grants only 5% of land to women. In addition to this, is the lack of adequate training in good agricultural practices, as well as the lack of mechanized equipment in the area. These constraints lead to spending more time in plowing, harvesting and post-harvest activities, therefore also affecting the quantity and quality of paddy rice.
To overcome these challenges, the rice partnership union and 2SCALE aim to carry out advocacy activities for women's access to land, training on good agricultural practices, and to structure the organization of these groups that are mostly informal in order to facilitate their access to finance by establishing contact with financial institutions operating in their area.
Women in rice processing
In the village of Yaoundé in Guiglo, the group of women rice parboilers practices parboiling in a traditional way. Their motivation in this activity is based on the demand that is increasingly high, and the existence of a lucrative market.
Parboiled rice is much appreciated for its nutritional quality and its low glycemic index (less than 70%), especially for people with diabetes. According to AfricaRice, parboiled rice is also more economical and has a longer shelf life.
Parboiling has great potential for women's economic empowerment, but Guiglo's women parboilers still face many challenges. These impediments include difficulties in supplying paddy rice, the lack of adequate equipment and the low quality of parboiled rice are hindering the development of this rice variant.
With the desire to improve the working conditions through professionalization of their activities, the partnership plans to organize training for these women on improved parboiling techniques as well as the use of modern equipment to make parboiled rice accessible to around 25,000 low-income consumers in Côte d’Ivoire. Improving the skills of these women, as well as modernizing this activity, will attract other women to this section of the value chain.
Women in rice distribution
In Côte d'Ivoire, the marketing of rice is a task mostly assigned to women. Despite such a high presence of women in this activity, the major constraints they face are partly linked to difficulties in production and processing. The constant lack of financial means to source large quantities, coupled with the distance from the sales sites as well as the low quality of parboiled rice constitute the bottleneck for most of the resellers.
To address this, the syndicated rice partnership aims to undertake a market survey of parboiled rice in order to support the marketing and distribution aspects related to the product. The business champions also plan to develop a local distribution system in order to include more young people and make the product's access easier to the markets at the base of the pyramid. This initiative, which is part of the economic empowerment of women and youth, will subsequently be replicated in the other areas covered by the partnership, namely Agboville and Daloa.
Stay tuned for more information on this partnership.
