Giving Compass' Take:

• When women farmers in Kenya and Burkina Faso have equal representation in the decision-making process surrounding land governance, food security improves and soils are managed more sustainably.

• Land is fundamental to breaking the poverty cycle. How can donors help women secure their rights? 

• Here's an article on granting women land rights in rural India. 

The Berlin-based think tank for sustainability TMG (Töpfer – Müller – Gassner) Research gGmbH is working on various sustainability challenges across the globe, including securing land access for women farmers. Together with its partners, TMG’s project known as Soil Protection and Rehabilitation for Food Security looks at the consequences of unequal land access on food security and soil health in rural farming communities. Food Tank had the chance to speak to Larissa Stiem-Bhatia, project coordinator for TMG, about the think tank’s work in Kenya and Burkina Faso.

“When farmers are in fear of losing their land, they have less incentive to invest and sustainably manage the land and its soil. This especially affects women and youth,” Stiem-Bhatia tells Food Tank. “From that perspective, we decided to do something about it and work on insecure land access, particularly on how it affects women.”

In Kenya and Burkina Faso, accessing land for agriculture can be a major challenge for women due to poor governance and gender inequality. According to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, women in many African countries make up nearly 60 percent of the family farming labor force, yet are often unrepresented in the legal process of securing land ownership.

Read the full article on securing better land rights by Douglas Donnellan at Food Tank.