Women in Agriculture, Windows of Love
They say women grow multidimensional life and love. Mothers’ mighty tugs drive the core of compassion. Sisters’ soft smiles let love run loose. Daughters’ devotion pierces past any prejudice. This is the emotional comfort food.
But so often underappreciated is the comestible comfort food that women give the world.
If my involvement with the World Food Prize taught me one thing, it’s that women feed this world. And that’s not just a meal made with love. It’s hours of walking to fetch water for crops despite scorching sunshine and bleeding feet. It’s pushing past preconceived career paths to birth innovation without expecting instant gratification. It’s leaving a life of concrete certainties to confront uncertainty. But most of all, it’s striving for impact over credit in the tackling the greatest challenge facing humanity — hunger.
John Deere’s CEO, Mr. Samuel Allen, first exposed the epiphany that left me speechless during the Global Youth Institute and beyond. Mr. Allen brought to light a piercingly emotional story of female Rajasthani farmer, Sita Kumawat, who spent hours in fields striving to harness water and food for her family. Sita’s story made me realize that an ocean away, there is a young woman in third-world country has greater abilities and greater commitment than I could ever have. But, the mere chance of luck and food accessibility has placed us in different, unfair circumstances where I have the upper hand.
Several months later, I had the privilege of interviewing Saumya, co-founder of the Kheyti, an agricultural startup that promotes the “greenhouse in a box” solution to power the lives of small farmers. As innovative and glorious as that sounds, Saumya’s journey was wrought with risk — she gave up a career in investment banking to help her startup stride to the forefront of Forbes 30 under 30.
But perhaps when the fruits of female agricultural labor proved themselves in fruition was through lens of my friends at EARTH. Sacrifice resonated between bread-bites and bug bites, spreading its soulful wings wide for the world to seize. After I interviewed Karen Gaona last week, I spent hours thinking about her path from Ecuador to EARTH — how she gave up her consistent call center job for a journey to join the fight in combating the virulent Panama disease. Karen’s spirit of service, unique elsewhere, is not unique at EARTH. My co-worker Mary-Claire chose an agricultural path to cater to her country, Rwanda, in its post-genocide era. Inspired to enact change through Sigatoka research on the plantain, Mary-Claire set her heart on “being an EARTH student in the future” after a surprise visit from a university staff member at her high school.
It takes drive to chase dreams, but it takes a special spark to chase dreams on slivers of hope. It takes courage to believe that “someday” your work will manifest — to throw instant gratification out the window and invite impassioned persistence through the door. It takes persistence to consistently renovate and innovate the first gift that uplifted humanity — agriculture. These women, among countless others, have thrown their energy behind this endeavor. They inspire me to scavenge for the appreciation in any situation. They give determination and dedication, all without expecting anything in return. They are the world’s mothers, literally and emotionally feeding humanity in an endeavor of values before victory.
