The 27th Foreign Correspondent Report

Women Do Not Just Help, They Do: Lesson Learned from Women
Cocoa Farmers in Indonesia
Ms. Marisna YULIANTI (Indonesia)
It was a hot Thursday afternoon. Among the greens of cocoa trees, a group of women andmen farmers gathered around listening attentively to a talk about soil pH and pest control.
“So now you know how to calculate soil pH and the effect it might give to your cocoa trees,
right? Are there any questions, Pak1?” the lady facilitator asked. A man raised his hand, whichstarted a discussion on the importance of controlling soil pH for the trees to produce goodquality cocoa beans. Throughout the process, the women farmers were quiet and did not say
much. They sat quietly in the back rows, overshadowed by the men. Is it because they wereoutnumbered by the men, or a sense of out of place was starting to take its tolls on them, is aquestion yet to be answered.
Gender equality highly values equal participation and involvement of women and men inall different spheres of life. Women and men need to be involved in all stages of developmentfrom planning to implementation in order for them to be able to equally control and benefit
from the development. The UN makes it clear that gender equality is about the availability ofequal access and opportunities to both women and men; it is not only a fundamental humanright, but a necessary foundation for a peaceful, prosperous and sustainable world 2. Being agroup in the society that is often left behind and marginalized, women and girls are most of
the time targeted as the primary focus. Empowering women and encouraging them to be more
involved are believed to bring us closer to gender equality. Many policies and programs havestarted to set women’s minimum participation rate at 30% in various domains, from politicalrepresentation in parliaments to women’s attendance in training and even in a small
discussion of cocoa farmers in one hot Thursday afternoon. But what does it really mean to bepresent, or to participate? Has it really been contributing to women gaining more access toopportunities and control over resources?
After that encounter with the group of farmers, we continued to meet with women farmergroups 3. These farmers have been receiving assistance and capacity building trainings froman international organization to improve the production and quality of their cocoa beans 4. Thewomen were, in majority, the wives of the men farmers. A few of them were helping theirfathers manage their cocoa gardens. Being in a women-only environment where they feel moresecure and comfortable, the women we met were more vibrant and full of energy. They shared
their stories on how they are now more knowledgeable about cocoa and how the householdincome has doubled because of the good quality beans they produced. The families can evensave money on hiring additional help because now women are more than capable to manage
their cocoa gardens. Changes are also happening in the relationship between women and men
in the family in which women are now consulted by their husbands in making decisions about
their cocoa gardens and there are more discussions happening between the two than before.
These changes were surprisingly beyond expectation considering that women were only
expected to join the training sessions when they had time as proxies for their husbands orfathers, and were mostly seen as helpers in the gardens. This in turn would affect the way
1‘Pak’ is the short of ‘Bapak’; a term Indonesians use to address adult men.
Taken from http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/gender-equality/
3
The trip was part of the author’s field visit to one of the locations of sustainable agriculture projects inIndonesia that she is currently working on.
4
To know more please see: http://www.swisscontact.org/en/country/indonesia/projects/projectsindonesia/project/-/show/sustainable-cocoa-production-program-scpp.html
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The 27th Foreign Correspondent Report
women were treated in the sessions where the facilitators would often center their focus only
on the men farmers as heads of households and sole guardians of the land and gardens, leaving
women largely in the back rows as second class farmers. The stereotyping has also proved toaffect the way women view themselves. The documented data on daily time use and gendereddivision of labor in agricultural activities demonstrates women’s fairly large share of theworkload in the farms; however, when asked who contributed to the farms, women would
immediately say it’s their husbands. “I just help” is the phrase these women commonly use todescribe their roles.
The issue of lack of acknowledgment of women’s roles and contributions in agriculture,
economy and other prominent development sectors has in fact never been fully resolved.
Indonesia’s related laws and regulations are still gender-blind and some even biased. To cite
an example, Marriage Law No. 1/1974 still specifies men as the head of household and main
provider for the family while women as a housewife. In fact, women make up 23% of totalfarmers in the agricultural sector (BPS5, 2013), and 55.04% of women of reproductive age takepart in the Indonesian labor force 6. The figures show that women are evidently there; however,
the acknowledgment of women’s presence may not be. No matter how hardworking womenfarmers are in managing their farms and plantations, they would only be seen as additional
help. No matter how much contribution women make to the household economy, their shareof income would only be seen as additional cash 7. Women’s tireless efforts to defy genderstereotypes are often met with dead ends, with many of them being still required to fulfill
their role as the carer of the household, prioritizing over anything else. As a result, women’scontribution as the family’s provider and active agent of economic transformation has neverbeen fully acknowledged.
If there’s one thing we can learn here, it is the undeniable fact that when women takepart in and actively contribute, positive changes happen. The government and society at large
need to acknowledge this by giving more space for women to improve the magnitude of theirpresence. Programs need to track not only women’s rate of participation with series ofnumbers and figures, but also qualitatively document women’s contribution and roles indiscussions and making constructive changes. Efforts need to be made to encourage women toparticipate more, from acknowledging their presence in meetings, arranging women-onlytraining sessions, to holding activities that suit their time and availability. This way, women
would feel their participation is not only required but also necessary. In time, hopefully thewomen cocoa farmers will finally have the confidence to sit in the front rows, and raise theirhands with pride. They will have the courage to say out loud, “We don’t just help; we docontribute and therefore deserve acknowledgment”.

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Badan Pusat Statistik (Indonesia National Statistics Office)As quoted by the Minister of Manpower of Indonesia in http://bisnis.liputan6.com/read/2952105/menakerkontribusi-perempuan-dalam-ekonomi-terus-meningkat
7This is documented in the author’s previous study on women’s business in Indonesia in http://www.mcaindonesia.go.id/en/publications/publication_types/crosscutting_activities_publication/study_on_the_development_of_a_formal_definition_of_women-owned_business_in_indonesia-721
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The 27th Foreign Correspondent Report

Women cocoa farmers voicing up their concerns in a discussion session.