Domestic violence has undermined the progress of women in agribusiness sector from succeeding economically, United Nations Women country representative in Uganda has said.

According to Dr Paulina Chiwangu, eight out of 10 women are involved in agriculture but their livelihoods have not yet improved as a result of domestic violence.

Chiwangu attributes this to harmful norms such as land possession which, according to her is still a preserve of men in many cultures.

During the clearing of land and planting, women are directly involved but when it comes to harvesting, their husbands get involved on top of selling the produce. At times, according to Chiwangu, the women are denied access to the finances from the proceeds despite their efforts.

She made the remarks during the Women in Agribusiness Expo 2023 at the Source of the Nile Agricultural Show Grounds in Jinja city on Saturday.

The expo attracted women from different farming enterprises such as fish, maize, coffee, milk, fruits, cereals including arts and crafts among other exhibitors.

Mariam Mulindwa gifting Ademun a craft purse at the 2023 agribusiness in Jinja town on Saturday. Photo by Jackie Nambogga

Mobilising women

It was organised by UN Women in partnership with the ministries of agriculture and gender as a pilot project in which they needed to expose women entrepreneurs on top of creating markets.

Chiwangu said the expo was their starting point of mobilising women in business after realising the financial situation challenges faced in Uganda as they struggle to run their enterprises.

Meanwhile, the commissioner for animal health at the agriculture ministry Dr Anna Rose Ademun Okurut, who was the chief guest, said gender violence was high because some men don’t want women to be richer than them hence becoming hostile.

She said this had led to the falling of some promising agribusinesses by women.

“Most women have injuries, and some have been battered but they choose to cover up the atrocities inside their marriages by feigning stories around their suffering. As a result, their enterprises end up falling due to such challenges and they choose to close and go back into poverty,” Ademun said.

Need for promoting agribusiness

The commissioner added that she had seen homes with very rich men behind them but when their homes never develop.

She observed the need of promoting agribusiness as a family or empower men to understand that it was not them alone to earn money.

“We need to support and protect women in agribusiness from hostile husbands who are frustrating the economic gender transformation,” she said.

Also, Chiwangu said the UN Women and the Uganda government need to come up with ideas on how they can assist women in agribusiness to access finances.

Besides finances, Ademun said education remains key saying once women are empowered financially and academically, this builds powerful homes and nations.

She narrated that in Teso region where she hails from, if a girl is born, they are welcomed with joy because parents consider them as sources of livestock and their education is not prioritised as they are being bred for marriage.

According to her, the number of cattle depends on how the bride was groomed yet the cows are used to pay bride price for their brothers.

She accounted that in case a groom intends to marry their daughter and the bride’s parents verify that he didn’t have cattle, they are chased away like rabid dogs.

Instead, they prefer marrying young girls to older men with five wives since the man has cattle.

Once a woman is strengthened academically and financially, Ademun said, their families and nation will also be strengthened because non-empowered women have no capacity of venturing into agribusiness.“I want to be forgiven but sometimes men are full of arrogance, they fail to run homes but if we empower women, such mothers won’t frustrate the education of their children,” she said.

The expo is a statement

Angela Nakafeero, the commissioner from the gender ministry in charge of women affairs, said the expo is a statement that participants are working hard to empower themselves economically to get out of poverty, create jobs and improve their incomes.

However, she cautioned them to be mindful of conserving the environment while engaging in their various enterprises to make profits.

She expressed happiness that the women were empowering themselves to accelerate gender equality.

According to Nakafeero, some products were in response to the special needs and response to the women in Uganda such as jewellery and health-related innovations after adding value on most of them.

She noted that their businesses had a lot of potential in terms of capturing the value chain, market and growth which was the overall goal of some programs which the gender ministry was pushing towards women economic empowerment.

Poor mobilisation

However, there were mixed reactions from the exhibitors who said they didn’t make money due to poor mobilisation by the event organisers as some stalls remained empty.

Anna Atukwase from the African Women Agribusiness Network Uganda chapter (AWAN) said the exhibitors outnumbered their potential buyers saying the mobilisation was extremely poor because they never advertised.

“Entrepreneurs are struggling, bringing us here without making any money yet we have incurred costs of transporting our products. This should be improved going forward,” Atukwase said.

Similarly, Judith Bakirya from the Jinja Women Agribusiness Co-operatives Lt and one of the Harvest Money winners from Busoga region, concurred with Atukwase on the poor mobilisation but said she was able to network with the exhibitors.

In response, Chiwangu said the expo aimed at creating networks among the exhibitors who were in line with adding value which they achieved as their key goal.

The expo also attracted financial institutions that directly support women in businesses with affordable loans.

She revealed that the UN Women had signed a memorandum of understanding with dfcu Bank to mobilise resources together for women in business which they needed to tap into.