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Zimbabwe's women farmers on the rise

28 May 2014

HARARE: The spike in women managing their own agricultural land following Zimbabwe's 2000 land reform programme catapulted the country to high up in the African league of female farmers tilling their own farms, although accurate data for gendered land ownership on the continent remains a grey and contested area.

Women provide the majority of sub-Saharan Africa's agricultural muscle and produce up to 80 percent of the regions basic foodstuffs, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

Prior to Zimbabwe's land redistribution, which saw about 4,500 white-owned farms - accounting for more than a quarter of the country - handed to an estimated 245,000 black farmers, fewer than 5% of Zimbabwe's women had land registered in their name. But in the wake of land reform, women now comprise about 20% of landowners and leaseholders.

Read the full article on www.irinnews.org.