Main Events / Project Events

On 17 December ONILFA organized the celebration of the World Rural Women’s Day that had as main theme: “Building a Sustainable Future with Rural Women”. On this occasion the Observatory celebrated also the 10th edition of the “De@Terra Award”. The Prize, as known, is addressed to women whose efforts in agriculture contributed significantly to the socio-economic and cultural growth of rural areas.

The event counted with the participation of renowned speakers engaged in gender issues in the rural sector in Italy but also in other Countries. Among the foreign speakers, it is worth mentioning the participation of Mrs. Bettina Bock from the University of Wagenigen (Holland). She reviewed the problems and opportunities of the European rural women. It was interesting to note that in the South European Countries women’s occupation is considerably lower (14-22%) than that of men, but on the other hand the number of women managing farms is much higher (29-32%) in the Mediterranean countries than in the North (12-23%). She elaborated on the reasons behind these facts.

Among the international guests was the Ambassador of Haiti in Italy, H.E. Géri Benoit, with whom ONILFA, in collaboration with the Working Group on Equal Opportunities of the National Rural Network, will launch a project focused on the knowledge transfer to Haitian rural women.

During the event the “Atlante delle donne impegnate in agricoltura” (Data base of the gender indicators of the National Rural Network) was also presented. This data base contains more than 600 indicators that provide numerical but also geographical information of the distribution of the gender and territory indicators over the main administrative units of Italy.

Several other speeches were made by representatives of ministries, institutes, universities and other related institutions. For further information and details you can visit ONILFA website (www.onilfa.gov.it).

As usual, the event ended with the delivery of the prizes by Minister Giancarlo Galan and ONILFA President Veronica Navarra to the 5 winners of the competition, while 3 won a “special mention”.