Women-led VBSE: First Time Ever in Afghanistan

Abstract

The most challenging part of initiating a woman-led VBSE (village based seed enterprise) was to motivate women to get involved and take leadership in seed business,”says Ms. Frozan Darwish, ICARDA’s Gender Expert in Afghanistan. In Afghanistan’s patriarchal social and cultural setup, that is highly restrictive, seed production is considered to be primarily the task of men farmers. Women farmers have few opportunities to be involved in this activity which is further exacerbated by their limited land rights.