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First Posted on Inside Mindanao: November 8, 2006

Women as Invisible Farmers
By Ellen Red

VALENCIA CITY, BUKIDNON— Farmer. Head of a family. Leader of a farmers’ organization.

These are the varied roles performed by Alma Abales, a woman farmer in Valencia City, province of Bukidnon.

As a single mother, Miss Abales, personally cultivates her four-hectare farm in Valencia. Of the four hectares, 2.2 hectares of which came from the government’s Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).

She is also the vice-chairperson of a farmers’ organization called Araneta Farmers Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries Association Multi-Purpose Cooperative (AFARBAMCO).

Miss Abales is one of the many women farmers in Mindanao whose contribution in agriculture remains invisible.

“Rural women in Mindanao, like anywhere else in the Philippines, work side by side with men in farms for decades. For decades also, they have helped feed the family and community. But they remain as invisible farmers,” Chona Lasaca, executive director of Luntiaw Mindanaw, Inc., a non-government organization working with agricultural women workers, tribal women, and women farmers, told Inside Mindanao.

“Rendered invisible, women farmers have very limited access to credit, agricultural services, training and technology,” the executive director of Luntiaw Mindanaw said.

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