"Crunch Time," The Evening Paper
Issue of 6 March 1996
The loud accusation: Highly touted democratic administrations after EDSA have failed to bring about real economic empowerment for the Filipino people.
But whence comes economic empowerment?
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Winters in Kashmir are replete with endless, sloping Himalayan valleys filled with fragrant flowers of purple saffron. In the early mornings, as the sun rises and the mist clears, saffron growers come out to pluck the flowers, oblivious to the occasional gunfire of a distant revolt.
In houses all over the valley, the womenfolk separate the petals from the flowers. At the end of the day, they would have produced about one kilogram of saffron petals from 40 kilograms of flowers.
Powdered saffron has a variety of uses--as a condiment in cooking, a fragrance in perfumes and special Kashmiri tea, and for making herbal medicines. At Hindu temples, the yellow stain from the petal is rubbed on the foreheads of the faithful. As an export product, saffron reaches as far as the Middle East and Britain and is popular among overseas Asian populations.
Saffron farmer Ghulam Mohamed Yathoo's earnings amount to some 50,000 rupees ($1,450) a year. He sells the saffron petals for 150-200 rupees ($5.70) per 12 grams. Another saffron farmer, Mohamed Shafeeq, said the season, which begins around the end of October, only lasts about two months. "We do other jobs during the off-season," he told Reuters correspondent Feizal Samath.
In houses all over the valley, the womenfolk separate the petals from the flowers. At the end of the day, they would have produced about one kilogram of saffron petals from 40 kilograms of flowers.
Powdered saffron has a variety of uses--as a condiment in cooking, a fragrance in perfumes and special Kashmiri tea, and for making herbal medicines. At Hindu temples, the yellow stain from the petal is rubbed on the foreheads of the faithful. As an export product, saffron reaches as far as the Middle East and Britain and is popular among overseas Asian populations.
Saffron farmer Ghulam Mohamed Yathoo's earnings amount to some 50,000 rupees ($1,450) a year. He sells the saffron petals for 150-200 rupees ($5.70) per 12 grams. Another saffron farmer, Mohamed Shafeeq, said the season, which begins around the end of October, only lasts about two months. "We do other jobs during the off-season," he told Reuters correspondent Feizal Samath.
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Farm life in the yellow hills of Shaanxi, in the poor, north-central area of China, has changed only in one aspect: the farms are increasingly being run by women.
All over China, millions of men have traveled away from their farm plots to find work in mines, factories, and special economic zones. It is the women who stay to work out the long-term leases on their state-owned fields.
The work for these women is backbreaking. Most farming in China waits to be mechanized, electricity has yet to replace kerosene lamps, and irrigation is still by buckets of water hauled on shoulder poles. But the local women, helped by government training programs, are improving on the old ways and making more money, according to a report by Renee Schoof of the Associated Press.
Xie Xiufen, a 38-year-old teacher and women's federation leader in Baimao village, started a new local industry by planting apples. After getting a fat check for her first harvest, she spent her evenings teaching other village women to read pesticide instructions and sales receipts. The women's federation provided training in apple growing.
Before her first apple harvest, Xie, her husband who works in the local government unit, and their two sons had just enough to eat. Today, they have more than 20,000 yuan ($2,400) in savings and plan to move to a new house.
A 1995 study by the International Fund for Agricultural Development found that many of China's 450 million rural women took government-sponsored agricultural training courses and now proudly possess two essential properties: their own income--and hope.
All over China, millions of men have traveled away from their farm plots to find work in mines, factories, and special economic zones. It is the women who stay to work out the long-term leases on their state-owned fields.
The work for these women is backbreaking. Most farming in China waits to be mechanized, electricity has yet to replace kerosene lamps, and irrigation is still by buckets of water hauled on shoulder poles. But the local women, helped by government training programs, are improving on the old ways and making more money, according to a report by Renee Schoof of the Associated Press.
Xie Xiufen, a 38-year-old teacher and women's federation leader in Baimao village, started a new local industry by planting apples. After getting a fat check for her first harvest, she spent her evenings teaching other village women to read pesticide instructions and sales receipts. The women's federation provided training in apple growing.
Before her first apple harvest, Xie, her husband who works in the local government unit, and their two sons had just enough to eat. Today, they have more than 20,000 yuan ($2,400) in savings and plan to move to a new house.
A 1995 study by the International Fund for Agricultural Development found that many of China's 450 million rural women took government-sponsored agricultural training courses and now proudly possess two essential properties: their own income--and hope.
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Whenever I hear migrant wives in Metro Manila declare on public service radio shows that they have no work of their own and their husbands hold only occasional jobs, I cringe.
-- NBT
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