How Women Are Leading The Way to a Conscious Food System

Most people don't know, I certainly didn't know, that a lot of the world's food, probably 40 something percent of the food that's produced in the world globally, is by women farmers.

Absolutely, about 43% to be accurate, yeah.

Hi, I'm Kaya Perowne, one of the producers of the Doctors Pharmacy podcast. Women play a foundational role in agriculture all over the world. In two recent conversations, Dr. Hyman explored the potential for women to fundamentally improve our broken global food system, and in doing so, significantly contribute to the reversal of global warming. Let's listen in as Dr. Hyman speaks with the co-founder of the nonprofit organization, Food Tank, Danielle Nierenberg.

They have higher yields, better production, they're more effective, and they do all these other stuff that is for their family. So they have a rough job and they actually are better farmers than men, it turns out.

One of the things that I'm most impressed by is how women are protecting traditional varieties of vegetables and grains and really, you know, saving seeds and making sure that available for the next season and for the next generation. Women were always the caretakers of seeds and it's really, you know, they're the ones who keep that going and make sure that it's around for their kids.

You talk about how by actually empowering women with better resources, with money, with education, that we could increase yields by 20-30% and, and I want to know why they do a better job than men growing food. And they could lift 150 million people out of hunger. That is a radical idea.

Those statistics are coming from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. And they've been studying this issue for a long time. You described it very succinctly. Women lack land, they lack access to education, they lack access to almost anything that would help them be better farmers. And men typically get those things. In some countries, it's 80% of the agricultural labor force is made up of women. So they're growing the food that, you know, came from- In spite of all these obstacles. In spite of everything, they're still growing food and doing a good job. But imagine what could happen if they had all the same resources as men did. If they had the education, if they were treated, you know, respectfully by banking and financial institutions, if they had access to technologies and inputs and all of the things that would help them do their jobs better. It could be revolutionary. So we ignore women in the food system really at our own peril. And if, you know, and it's not about empowering women, it's about women being empowered and empowering themselves, right?

It's also smart business. It's smart policy. It's just smart.

Absolutely. And I think one of the things when we talk about women in the food system is we have to understand that we also need to educate women and boys and young girls. It's not about just educating women. It's about really finding ways to make sure that men learn how to value and respect women, not only for the, you know, the money that they can make, but their value inherently as human beings and as wives and mothers and daughters and friends. And so I think that's a really important part of this, this education of men and boys.

Yeah.

Paul Hawken, who we've had on the podcast, talks about drawdown. How do we draw down carbon in the environment? And together, collectively, all the food solutions are the number one solution. But if you sort of repackage it and so what is another way to sort of see what are the biggest solutions? It's really women. There's two things. One is educating women and family planning.

Absolutely.

And those two things we think of, how could that have anything to do with climate change or agriculture? Has everything to do with it. But it turns out it, those two things together are the collectively the biggest solutions to draw down carbon in the environment because of the sort of trickle down effect of what happens when you educate women, you empower them and you- and it's generational.

Let's turn now to Dr. Hyman's interview.

With environmental activist and executive director of Project Drawdown, Paul Hawken.

70% of the food in the world is produced by small holders, which is defined by the FAO as a farm that is smaller than two hectares or five acres. And 43 depends, but 43-42% of that is women. Okay, those are the small holders. Okay, what we know is that Big Ag, you know, the CAFOs, the GMOs, soy corn, et cetera, Big Ag produces 27% of the world's food. And you would think listening to them that if we didn't support what they want to do, they would all starve. But if you actually look at what they produce, actually it's producing big pharma. Because it's producing obesity, diabetes, strokes, heart disease.

It's good for business for the drug companies.

Probably dementia and Alzheimer's too, because they're all interrelated, as you know, because they're all inflammatory diseases. Women, okay, let's go back to women, 43% of 70 do the math and so forth, they're producing 31% of the food, they're producing more food than Big Ag. And there is a solution in drawdown because if we give women, which we don't, the same tools, seeds, and support that men get, small holders, okay, in other words, just equal it out, they out produce men 10 to 20%. They're better farmers. And the fact is then that's 200 million acres or hectares actually of forest that we don't have to cut down to produce food for a growing population. We have all the land we need in order to produce enough food for the 10.7 or 9.8 billion, whoever, billion people are going to be here in 2050. When you educate a girl, support her to get her education, she becomes a woman on her terms more or less, depending on the situation, but a lot more than when she's yanked out of school and married early or put to work to put her brother through school when she's 11 or 12 years and that girl has an average of five plus children. We've known this for 40 years. This is not new data. But if she's supported to get her high school education, the equivalency of that, she has two plus children. And not only that, I mean, she earns more, she has a better education, she puts more resources into those children, have a better health outcome. This is the girl effect that's been talked about. And those children repeat their mother's behavior. Boy or girl doesn't make any difference.

The profound impact that educated women have in the world cannot be understated. Globally, women are leading the way when it comes to caring for biodiversity, water quality and quantity, soil health, and other aspects of consciously producing food for an ever-growing population. The data is clear. Empowered and educated young girls become strong women who support communities and can promote positive social change through the reduction of both global hunger and global warming. The information coming out around climate change can be incredibly overwhelming, and we know that our food system is an enormous contributor to global warming. The good news is that the food system is also a potential solution, with substantial benefit resulting in the global education of women. Thanks for tuning in to this week's mini episode of the Doctor's Pharmacy. Before we sign off, we wanted to take a moment to ask you for your thoughts on these weekly mini episodes of the podcast. We'd really appreciate it if you could take a few minutes to visit drhyman.comfeedback and respond to our super short survey that we put together. We value your opinion. Again, that's drhyman.com slash feedback. Thanks so much.