Rice, Climate Change And A Post-COVID Opportunity For Women In Guyana

Rice, the most widely consumed staple in the world, has been one of the central protagonists in the global food crisis caused by COVID-19. Three quarters of global rice exports, that originate in Asian countries such as India and Thailand, have been affected by supply chain disruptions and export reductions due to concerns around domestic food security and climate change-fuelled droughts. The resulting volatility has created market opportunities for smaller producers, such as the South American country of Guyana, to increase production to meet the growing demand.

With the highest rice production per capita in the world (FAOSTAT, 2018), Guyana produces nearly ten times more rice per capita than India. The Food and Agriculture Organisation’s (FAO) 2018 data on more than 120 rice producing countries, places Guyana in 21^st place for rice yields (hg/hectare) and number 39 for total production globally, with half of its annual production being exported to more than 30 countries. Despite its relatively small size, Guyana is the 13^th largest net exporter of rice in the world. (worldstopexports.com)

Unlike its Asian counterparts, Guyana’s rice trade has not been set back by COVID-19. The Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB) reported a 13 per cent increase in rice exports between January and May 2020 as compared to the corresponding period in 2019.

But the economic promise of rice to the population of Guyana is neither gender-blind nor environmentally neutral. Guyana’s high vulnerability to climate change, particularly in its coastal areas, coupled with limited opportunities for women in agriculture, create uncertainty, instability and inefficiency in a number of areas. If rectified, these can fuel a more economically and environmentally resilient future for the Guyanese rice industry.

Over the years, climate change-driven variations in rainfall and temperature have caused flooding, drought, and an increase in pests, diseases and weeds, all of which have affected output. A 2012 World Bank report listed flooding as the most significant risk to Guyana’s rice sector and drought as number 3. Saltwater intrusion due to rising sea level and stronger storm surges is also a major problem, which lead to a 16 per cent drop in rice production in 2016.

The gendered division of labour in the agricultural sector means that female farmers’ experiences with climate change are drastically different from those of their male counterparts. There are significant differences in the experiences of female vs. male-headed households, females in male-headed households and across single parent households (FAO, 2010).

In 2018, Guyana ranked 123^rd out of 189 countries on the Gender Inequality Index, confirming that there is indeed a “gender gap” between men and women. But given that most agricultural data is not disaggregated by gender, there is limited quantitative evidence of how large the discrepancies are in this sector.

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) reports that 9 per cent of Guyanese women are employed in agriculture as compared to more than 22 per cent of men (2019). Women who are involved in agriculture often do so as unpaid family workers who are simultaneously involved in taking care of children and housework, thus experiencing greater vulnerability, less access to resources, and lower productivity than their male counterparts.

In the face of climate change, women are disadvantaged by differences in access to information surrounding agricultural best practices and impending inclement weather. This disadvantage relative to men affects female farmers’ decision-making power, making it difficult to navigate the uncertainties posed by unpredictable weather patterns.

Women also have significantly lower levels of land ownership than men. Even among households that are headed by female farmers, women typically have no title to their lands. This results in less access to land-based resources and income, such as water, financing and technology.

Given that rice is a water-intensive crop, requiring 3000-5000 litres of water to produce 1 kg of the staple, the interplay of climate change-driven events such as drought, with women’s unequal access to water resources, compounds production inefficiencies and reinforces gender inequalities.

Providing women with equal access to key assets such as “land, technology, financial services, education and markets” could raise output on women’s farms by 20 to 30 per cent and increase total agricultural production by 2.5 to 4 percent, which would have massive implications for poverty reduction and nutrition. (FAO)

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) upholds that “Gender equality at the household and community levels leads to superior agricultural and development outcomes, including increases in farm productivity and improvements in family nutrition.”

The rice sector is of major importance to small farmers, with a large number of producers operating on farms of less than 4.5 hectares, making them particularly vulnerable to climate change impacts. Most women farmers fall into this group. Technologies to support resilience and climate change adaptation among smallholder farmers would be beneficial in sustainably increasing productivity and empowering women.

Further, “because gender-differentiated vulnerabilities to the impacts of climate change are the cumulative result of a complex array of socio-cultural, structural and institutional inequities, climate-smart agriculture and similar efforts should seek to enhance the resource base of women and ensure that women’s contributions to productivity and food security are broadly valued, redressing gendered vulnerabilities and unequal power dynamics in agriculture would help ensure their efficacy and sustainability.” (UNDP, 2016)

Launched in 2019, the Cooperation for Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience in the Caribbean Initiative, funded by Global Affairs Canada, is working with the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations to support CARICOM members via a pre-investment Fund for drafting and negotiating financing for gender sensitive climate change projects, such as the REACT project that, if approved for financing, will directly impact 40,000 small producers in Guyana’s coastal communities by improving their climate resilience. This project is unique in that it addresses climate change adaptation through a gender-sensitive lens.

The need to create a level playing field and make up for gender and climate based inefficiencies is more critical now than ever before. The United Nations World Food Programme has projected that the crisis will almost double the amount of people faced with acute food insecurity by the end of 2020, to an estimated 265 million.

Jean Balié, Research Director of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) believes that within the context of the current global food crisis, rice will play a critical role in the nutrition of as much as 30 per cent of the world’s population. According to the FAO, “if women farmers were given the same access to productive resources as men (e.g., land), the number of malnourished people could be reduced by 12 to 17 percent.” (FAO)

Herein lies an opportunity for Guyana to grow its rice supply— but in order to meet the increasing global demand for rice, it is imperative that climate change vulnerabilities and gender inequalities are simultaneously addressed.