STUDY on the position of women farmers as pillars of food security has been conducted by many researchers from many institutions. Their works have succeeded in systematically showing how women farmers around the world—including Indonesia—hold control over family and community food control.
The results of the research conducted by these researchers immediately hit the assumption that sees women solely as “processors” of food brought home by their husbands (men); women are considered to only cook food produced by men so that their role is not a determinant in family food security.
This book also aims to show that women play a role as “food processors” as well as “guarantor of food availability”, two roles that cannot be taken over by men. However, we, the authors, do not intend to repeat this discussion.
We conducted serious research in the Gayo Highlands area, interviewed many women farmers, and then found, among other things, the fact that women farmers in several districts and cities in Tanoh Gayo also do the same thing as their “friends” around the world. However, in addition to the common traits that are shared by all groups, there are still unique characteristics within each community. The unique things among Gayo women farmers are not found in women farmer communities in other places. And vice versa. These unique characteristics enrich knowledge about women's involvement in agriculture, especially in the issue of food security.
The Gayo Highlands are both an economic and cultural region. Uniquely, these two things are built by one commodity: coffee. Coffee is a commodity traded throughout the world. Coffee is also part of the culture of the Gayo people (the name for those of the Gayo ethnic group). Men and women both have roles in it.
However, Gayo women who participate in farming are an important phenomenon to study because they contain a lot of unique knowledge and inspire many women in other areas.
In many ways, Gayo women farmers are brilliant entities in matters of family and community food security. They have succeeded in creating a multi-layered protection formula to face the food crisis. They create strategies that seem trivial, but actually have good and long-term impacts. Tomato trees in the yard are not a sight that can make you feel attracted. It's just ordinary.
But when food prices in the market rise sharply, the presence of vegetable plants in front of the house will be useful enough to make everyone in the family still be able to eat three times a day.
Any text that only narrates the brilliant achievements of women farmers, without showing the weaknesses, shortcomings, or even any suffering experienced during the effort to realize this, can give the impression that all women can get everything easily—which then should not be appreciated too much.
As is common knowledge: every successful struggle will be preceded by various hardships (suffering). In this book, we will also explain the difficulties faced by Gayo women farmers in their efforts to realize food security, as well as how to then utilize existing knowledge and resources to overcome existing problems.
Everyone certainly knows that women who work play a dual role: breadwinner and family caretaker (housewife). One will hinder the other, unless an effective solution can be found and mutually support both, which at first glance seems impossible. In this case, Gayo women farmers do not create their own solutions.
They solve private problems collectively, because indeed it is not just one or two people who are overwhelmed as housewives and farmers. The results of this collective intelligence then present farmer cooperatives that not only have an economic function but also a family protection function.
Regarding knowledge, we also specifically review Gayo women farmers who are graduates of the faculty of agriculture. This is done to see whether the knowledge obtained through the university curriculum structure has an effect on increasing the level of skills and competencies.
We examine the interconnectedness of agricultural knowledge with farming practices in the fields through specific questions. And for this context, we will also provide a number of recommendation points for improving the quality of agricultural education curriculum in universities.
We hope that this book can enrich the knowledge about the vital role of women farmers in food security, thus producing policies that are more pro-women in various fields. For that, we thank the parties who have helped complete this book. []
