Rahael: Special agri training for women

 AGRICULTURE MINISTER John Rahael said women have special needs and special attempts are being made worldwide to implement policies, programmes and projects, which recognise differences in entitlements and control and access to economic resources.

Rahael said this when he addressed the Associated Country Women of the World (ACWW) Caribbean, Central and South America Area Conference on Working with Women Worldwide at the Ministry of Agriculture, Land and Marine Resources, El Reposo Station Oropouche Road, Fishing Pond. He said traditionally women attained lower education levels compared to men, particularly in the agriculture sector. This is supported by the 1982 Agricultural Census. Today, he said, there is a closing gap and females are outperforming the males. Nevertheless males still tend to dominate in technical and vocational areas.

According to Rahael the 1992 Survey of living conditions clearly demonstrated that women are among the most vulnerable in our society. Poverty levels were shown to be much higher than the average in households headed by females. Women have also been recorded as performing unpaid work on family enterprises, regarding these duties as part of their household responsibilities. Rahael said it was in this context the Ministry made special provision in its sector policy to implement and support a gender sensitive approach to agriculture development. He said this has been characterised by specially targeted interventions for women, training programmes located nearer to households in rural communities, training periods arranged to fit the schedule of the women, educational programmes with an informal, adult approach to learning and introduction of technical subject matters adapted and revised to suit the educational background and circumstances of women. He said this is in keeping with Government’s plans to embark on a Strategic Development Plan to achieve Developed Country status by 2020.