Jeannette participated in the Responsible Business Forum on Food and Agriculture in Jakarta from March 14-15. Where she was a speaker on the panel: Scaling up gender empowerment initiatives in food and agriculture, which was moderated by Jenny Costelloe, Country Director, Partnerships, of Grow Asia and the other panelist were Imran Nasrullah, Chief Executive in Indonesia for Louis Dreyfus Company and Pablo Pacheco, Principal Scientist of Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR).
This meeting was followed by a Grow Asia event, on Women in Agriculture- Transforming an issue into an opportunity where nearly 50 participants joined from the private sector, NGOs, governments, associations and consultancy firms. The main objective was for the event not to be restricted to a general discussion about women in agriculture but to galvanize participants and their respective organizations to take more specific actions to address the issue. Therefore, after initial presentations to guide the workshop, participants were split into three discussion groups to identify practical initiatives that could be further sponsored by Grow Asia and in which interested parties could work together. The groups focused on solutions that would target women specifically (rather than smallholder farmers in general). The ideas represented a continuum, ranging from mapping value chains to identifying those where women are the predominant workers; to recognizing women’s empowerment and the derived benefits at the Women in Agriculture Oscars. The outcome report will be available soon.
