Ten Years of Empowering Turkish Women Farmers

Abstract

In 2011, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey (New Brunswick, NJ, USA) and Akdeniz University (Antalya, Turkey) conducted a survey to identify needs, interests, and capacities of Turkish women farmers. We interviewed extension educators and female farmers in three villages and used the results to develop a pilot, 28-hour course to train 40 small-scale citrus (Citrus sp.) and greenhouse producers from Kumluca, Turkey. Training included computer literacy, citrus and greenhouse production, and business management. The municipalities of Elmali, Duzce, Korkuteli, and Boztepe, Turkey, duplicated the successful pilot program within the next 2 years. To expand the training to more women farmers, we partnered with colleagues in Germany, Spain, and Malta to develop Empowering Women Farmers with Agricultural Business Management Training (EMWOFA), which had a multiplier effect by training educators who then trained women farmers to improve their business skills. The outputs of EMWOFA were a training manual for educators, a workbook for the women farmers, and e-learning videos in English, Turkish, Spanish, German, and Maltese.