Marita Seara Fernández [1], who blogs on Mujeres construyendo [2] (Women building), calls for the empowerment of rural woman and explains that according to Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) 58 million women in Latin America and the Caribbean live in rural areas and 4 and a half million are farmers.
Photo from the blog Mujeres Construyendo, used with permission.
Meanwhile, Seara Fernández claims that although starvation has been reduced, it hasn't been so among women, where it has increased. FAO representative for the region Raúl Benítez stresses the need to empower women in economics and politics, which requires the educational gap and access to farming resources to be diminished. The solution is to stimulate rural women's empowerment [3]:
Esta premisa debe estar considerada a la hora de diseñar leyes y programas determinados. Deben capacitarlas, enseñarlas a sacar provecho de sus recursos y de lo que aprenden. No solo esto, se debe reducir las brechas educacionales y tecnológicas.
This premise must be taken into account when designing laws and programs. They should train women, teach them to make the most out of their resources and what they learn. Not only this, educational and technoloigcal gaps must be reduced.
Thus, the efforts made by Soledad Venegas in Oxaca, México [4], aimed at empowering rural women throught the access to ICTs, represent an example, that allow access to knowledge about production mechanisms, business and commercial exchange and similar experiencies.
You can follow Marita Seara Fernández on Twitter [5].