The role of women in the coffee industry

The woman is a miracle of nature, without which life would not be the same. And even if it is often accepted as the weaker gender, this is not the case because the roles it takes during its existence are many and highly responsible, i.e. mother, grandmother, wife, housewife, and others. And in the spirit of the International Women's Day - March 8th, we from the Family Roastery "Martines Caffe" chose our current blog article to be dedicated to the fairer of both sexes - women. In addition to the mentioned roles,  in which almost every woman "takes" we will pay attention to another one - the one in the coffee industry. Also, gender discrimination strength over the years. Do both sexes already have equal rights? Can a woman be in charge of a farm? You will find the answers to these questions and more useful facts in the lines below.



Unfortunately, there is a lot of disagreement, unclear facts and statements regarding this topic, and not so much information and research from which we can obtain. However, we will still try to reach conclusions, using the available information about women's role in the global coffee sector.

Women in the production

In many family coffee farms in Africa and other producing countries, women usually participate in most of the harvesting and processing, sorting the coffee beans, and other manual activities, so their contribution is vital. However, they have little control over harvest revenues, and the structure of the coffee industry provides little benefit to women. And unfortunately, they can rarely make decisions on significant production-related topics that affect them directly.

That reason why the organization, the International Women's Coffee Alliance (IWCA), was created, working for the benefit of women around the world and trying to serve their interests for a better future and sustainability of the coffee industry.
A UN study shows (http://www.fao.org/3/i6030e/i6030e.pdf) that women make around 43% of the agricultural workforce in the developing countries and receive lower wages than men who perform the same activity. Women are barely present in trade, exports, analysis, or laboratory work. Decision-making and business roles are reserved for men, while women are busy with hard physical work.

Women owners of coffee farms

A study made by the International Trade Center in 2008 found the number of coffee plantations owned by women is disturbingly low. While they make up a majority of workers, only 15% of coffee farms are owned by women. The reason for that is explained by one even more shocking study on gender equality in the coffee industry in 2015. This study reveals that in many countries where coffee is grown, laws either completely prevent or limit the size of land that a woman can own without allowing her to have more than one coffee plantation.

The perspective for women in the coffee industry

According to the World Economic Forum (WEF), it will be another 100 years before both sexes achieve social equality and more than 200 years before men and women achieve full financial equality. And despite that, there are organizations worldwide involved in protecting women's rights and fighting against gender discrimination. It is a reliable method of tackling these global problems and would help for a better future.

By applying inequality between men and women, many coffee producers are unknowingly limiting various benefits and more successful development of the sector itself. It is currently estimated that closing the gender gap and giving women equal access to agricultural resources would increase the women's farms by 20% to 30% and increase agricultural production in developing countries by up to 4%.

In summary, we should not care what the situation was before, even now. The future is important, and for it to be brighter, everyone needs to be involved, more or less, on the topic of gender discrimination in the coffee industry, and not just because, as mentioned above, equals rights between men and women can contribute to the more successful development of the sector. We also want to emphasize that women cannot be the weaker sex, as they are the key figures in the production doing heavy physical activity in the farms. And in these difficult times, in which we live and rarely see successful and working women, wouldn't it be better if we encourage them to develop, be useful and earn their income?



In this sense, with great pleasure, we would like to suggest you take a look at our specialty coffes from Rwanda - Ishema and Nicaragua - Macucane, which are from farms owned by women. By choosing these coffees, you would encourage their work and support gender equality.