Illiteracy and jealousy impeding female farmers

A WORSHOP has found illiteracy to be the main obstacle impeding the progress of women in the commercial farming and agriculture sector.
The four-day workshop was held at the Forest Research Institute in Lae last week to identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats faced by women in agriculture.
The workshop revealed reluctance to cooperate amongst themselves due to laziness and jealousy  hampered their success.
Workshop co-facilitator Rudy Artango said women had already gone into commercial farming and agriculture but had not progressed or developed their skills.
On the last day of the workshop, the women presented to their facilitators what they believed to be internal and external issues affecting their progress.  
She said illiteracy had prevented many women from comprehending basic written materials.
Mrs Artango said major external impediments included finding markets to achieve sustainability and financial backing also affected their success.
The workshop was an initiative by non-governmental Organisation Bris Kanda.
The participants were from a group called Oriatz in the Wampar LLG of the Huon Gulf district.
Bris Kanda general manager Lukis Romaso said the workshop results would be used to liaise with different partners for solutions.
He said Bris Kanda would be able to provide capacity building for sustainability to enable women to manage their projects.
“This is the first time Bris Kanda has focused on women under the gender and youth programme,” he said.