Illinois Ag Connection - Second Edition of 'Warriors -- Rural Women Around the World' Launched

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Second Edition of 'Warriors -- Rural Women Around the World' Launched
Illinois Ag Connection - 10/16/2019

The Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), with support from Corteva Agriscience, will launch the second edition of the book, "Warriors -- Rural Women around the World", which is a publication that is already a reference on women who live and work in the countryside. This launch took place in 14 capital cities in the Americas and Spain.

Through unique accounts and original visions based on professional and personal experiences, the authors, who hail from the five continents and are primarily women, analyze data and statistics, and explain why it is important to empower rural women.

The publication, which is also a source of information on the situation of women in the countryside, and on possible strategies to improve their living conditions, includes photographs from the highly acclaimed photojournalist Sebastião Salgado.

The book will be launched simultaneously in Asuncion, Bogota, Brasilia, Buenos Aires, Guatemala City, Mexico City, Panama City, Madrid, Montevideo, San Jose in Costa Rica, San Salvador, Santiago de Chile, Tegucigalpa and Iowa, as well as on the website ruralwomen.iica.int.

Warriors, in its three versions, Spanish (Luchadoras) and portuguese (Lutadoras), highlights the fundamental support that rural women provide for food security and rural development on the planet.

It also describes the lives of women who work to maintain their families, farms, gardens, organizations and communities in various parts of the world.

In the words of Manuel Otero, director general of IICA, "the second edition of the book is part of IICA's efforts to promote equity in agricultural and rural development processes, improve the living conditions of rural women, and contribute to removing the gaps that currently exist.

It also satisfies an ambitious objective that commits our institute to continuous and unwavering action, i.e. that of stimulating the necessary public discussion to incentivize the formulation and execution of quality policies that improve the situation of rural women. This is another concrete step in that direction".

"With the collaboration of distinguished authors, and inspired by extraordinary stories of overcoming adversity, the Corteva Agriscience family had to be part of the second edition of the book, Warriors, published by IICA", stated Dana Bolden, the company's senior vice-president of External Affairs and Sustainability.

"Last year, we spearheaded an initiative through which we surveyed 4,200 rural women farmers in 17 countries, in order to understand the challenges that they face in local markets. The results of this survey, as well as the partnerships that we are establishing and the changes that we are promoting in agriculture, will eventually enable us to bring equality to the conditions of female farmers in rural areas. This book highlights their work and celebrates their achievements. We could not be prouder of being a part of this effort", added Bolden.

The second edition of Warriors includes unique texts from the following authors: Melinda Gates, co-president of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; Vice-President of Colombia Marta Lucía Ramírez de Rincón; First Lady of Paraguay Silvana Abdo; the Minister of Agriculture, Livestock and Food of Brazil Tereza Cristina Corrêa da Costa Dias; Minister of Food and Agriculture of the Federal Republic of Germany Julia Klöckner; President of the 73rd Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations María Fernanda Espinosa Garces; Executive Director of the Pan-American Development Foundation (PADF) Katie Taylor; and Bolden herself.

In the cities where the book was launched, IICA commemorated the International Day of Rural Women with different activities.

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