The news from FAO North America - March 2024

Dear Reader,

In the United States, March is Women’s History Month. To kick-off this celebration of women, we took a look at prominent American women in agriculture. Here is the story of just one.

Harriet Williams Russell Strong (1844-1926) lived on a farm in southern California with her husband and four daughters. When her husband died, he left her with a 220-acre farm which was failing due to drought and inadequate irrigation. An innovator, Harriet Strong stopped planting wheat, rye and barley crops and turned to growing a specialty crop - walnuts. Instead of using the traditional method of planting corn between walnut trees, she planted fast-growing pampa grass. Strong also invented a dry land irrigation system and water conservation system, one of her five patented inventions. Strong turned around her farm’s finances, becoming the leading grower of walnuts in the country. Her irrigation system was adopted by farmers across the United States. (Source: womeninagscience.org)

You may ask what this has to do with 联合国粮农组织 's work to achieve a food-secure world? I would argue, EVERYTHING! It is a story of innovation, adaptation, and resilience that achieved agrifood systems transformation. As Deputy Director-General Beth Bechdol posited during the USDA 100th Agricultural Outlook Forum in February, agricultural innovation and technologies represent unparalleled opportunities to improve the resilience of agrifood systems, providing the means for communities most affected by conflict or extreme weather events to survive and to restore their livelihoods and self-reliance. Read more on DDG Bechdol’s participation in the USDA event as well as her bilateral meetings with high-level stakeholders while in Washington, DC last month in the full version of the newsletter (link below).

While Harriet Strong did not contend with the challenges of climate change in the late 19th century, she did face the challenges of drought and inadequate water supply. Today we all face the impacts of climate change but some are impacted more than others. Often it is those who have contributed the least to climate change who bear the highest burden, experiencing its severest impacts and lacking access to the resources, services and opportunities needed to mitigate, adapt, and survive.

Until now there has been no data to support the urgent need to support inclusive policies and investments to strengthen individual farmer’s and rural communities’ resilience to climate change. To fill the knowledge gap, FAO will launch on March 5, a groundbreaking report “The Unjust Climate: Measuring the impacts of climate change on rural poor, women and youth”. Here's an interview with Lauren Phillips , Deputy Director of the Rural Transformation and Gender Equality Division on the importance of tackling the gender gap to fight food insecurity and the impacts of climate change.

On March 8, our partner, the CSIS Global Food and Water Security Program , will host an event "The unjust climate: Bridging the gap for women in agriculture" to discuss the findings of the report. In honor of International Women's Day, we will focus on the unequal impacts of climate change of rural women in low- and middle-income countries and the policies and investments required to shrink disparities. Doing so will grow resilience, women’s empowerment, and food security in the face of our changing climate.

This month let’s celebrate women’s history. For the future of all, let’s ensure that women in agrifood systems have the means not only to survive but to thrive!

You'll find the full newsletter with FAO global and country news, interviews, events and new publications from HERE.

Stay safe, stay tuned.

Jocelyn Brown Hall

Director, FAO North America