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Ten Years of Empowering Turkish Women Farmers

Robin Brumfield and Burhan Ozkan

Summary

In developing and emerging economies, like Turkey, women represent almost half of the total agricultural labor force, and their contributions are mostly invisible, being seen instead as not ‘productive’ because they often are expected to work without pay. Agriculture is an important economic sector in Turkey, with one out of four people are employed in the agricultural sector. Women in Turkish greenhouse vegetable production have heavier workloads than men. Women and men have equal workloads in the greenhouse, but household activities are carried out mainly by women. Thus, women must balance the responsibilities of home and work. Timing to accommodate women’s schedules must be considered when planning educational programs for educational programs for women. Agriculture is currently a male dominated industry, but women are taking an increasingly important role.
With this background, in 2011, Dr. Robin Brumfield and her Turkish counterpart, Dr. Burhan Özkan conducted a needs assessment and feasibility study to identify priority needs, interests and capacities of women farmers in Turkey. The team interviewed Extension educators and female farmers in three villages, using the results to develop a pilot 28-hour course to train 40 small-scale citrus and greenhouse producers from Kumluca, Turkey. Training included computer literacy, technical citrus and greenhouse production, and business management. The women developed a business plan a mission statement for their farms by the end of the course. The women in the pilot project named the course Suzan’in Projesi (Suzanne's Project) in honor of Dr. Brumfield's daughter who inspired her to take the project to Turkey. As a result of the successful pilot program, the municipalities of Elmali, Duzce, Korkuteli, and Boztepe (which included five Rutgers Study Abroad students) followed within the next two years.
To expand the training to more women farmers in Turkey and in other countries, Drs. Özkan and Brumfield partnered with colleagues in Germany, Spain, and Malta to develop Empowering Women Farmers with Agricultural Business Management training,(EMWOFA). The project was designed to have a multiplier effect by training educators who would then train women farmers to improve their business skills and farms. The outputs of EMWOFA were a training manual for educators, a workbook for the women farmers and e-learning videos which have resulted in women in other Turkish villages as well as women in Spain, Germany, and Malta being trained.

Details

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