Women Entrepreneurs in Agriculture

In this article, we focused on women entrepreneurs in agriculture and the challenges they have faced. Agriculture is an important instrument for social progress in especially rural areas and almost half of the world’s working population in agriculture is women. While the number of working women in agriculture is high, the number of women landowners is still very low. Gender roles and bias in the economic system play a crucial role in this regard. For example, women struggle more to find credit, funding, and support from family members than men in agricultural entrepreneurship. Without adequate funding and grants for investments, women entrepreneurs cannot afford to buy fertilizer and advanced farming tools as well as use sustainable agricultural methods to increase efficiency.

Within this framework, we focused on Turkish women entrepreneurs in agriculture. Turkish women entrepreneurs have faced obstacles regarding establishing and progressing business due to established gender roles in culture, gender inequality, financing, and education. The majority of women entrepreneurs have expressed that the obstacles they have faced due to gender bias are less likely to be surmountable. Furthermore, women face economic violence and have to fight against gender inequality. This leads to taking less risk for establishing businesses, limited mobility in the business world, and not using their potential fully, which makes it very difficult for them to engage in or continue entrepreneurial activities successfully. 

Encouraging women to be entrepreneurs in agriculture and supporting them in their activities not only help close the gender gap and empower women but also stimulate sustainable development. Providing women the same resources, capital, and education opportunities as men could increase food production, decrease hunger for more people, and lead  better and long-term results in terms of health care, employment, and food for farmer women, their families, and employees. In this regard, decreasing the gender gap by providing women with more opportunities is crucial. Education in agriculture for women carries great importance for their progress. Vocational training courses can be given to women farmers so that their knowledge and skills can be increased to a higher level and the right way of using the tools and equipment should be taught to women entrepreneurs. Furthermore, comprehensive training programs on product marketing should be organized in order to sell their products more easily. In terms of capital, the problem of lack of financing can be solved by providing special, low-interest, or interest-free loans to women entrepreneurs. Also, products produced by women entrepreneurs in rural areas should be registered and brought into the economy. Lastly, increasing women organizations in this field can help women entrepreneurs tremendously in terms of guiding and advocacy. It can be helpful for credit opportunities, legal issues, the establishment of a business, knowledge exchange, and networking.

Government and investors have a crucial role in terms of empowering women. There are many women entrepreneurs with creative and innovative ideas that seek support. There have been initiatives and support programmes for women throughout the years, such as the Strengthening Women’s Entrepreneurship in Agriculture Program 2014-2019, strengthening the women cooperatives by the government, Women Entrepreneur Development and Acceleration Program in Agriculture by the Turkish Women Entrepreneurs Association (KAGİDER) since 2019. However, Turkey is still behind in gender equality. For example, according to the 2017 Human Capital Report published by the World Economic (WEF) in 2017, Turkey ranked 117th in terms of gender equality in employment among the 25-54 age group. In order to close the gender gap and empower women entrepreneurs, more comprehensive initiatives should be realized by the government, with an emphasis on social structure and gender role change.