Global seed companies are failing to meet the specific needs of women farmers and provide them with the seeds they need, according to a study.
The Access to Seeds index report 2016 found that seed firms focus their research on major cash crops, such as maize and rice without developing better varieties of other seeds that are important to female farmers in developing countries, the report says.
This means that female farmers benefit less from advances in seed breeding and agricultural science than male farmers, the report’s authors warn.
The report found that only three of the 17 global seed companies it studied have programmes that explicitly seek to take into account “women farmers’ input”.
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