Songco women biyahidors in Loverslane Market: Self-empowerment through micro vegetable entrepreneurship

Studies have shown that rural women in developing tropical countries continue to suffer from many gender-based inequalities and world trade policies that adversely affect their rights and control over natural and productive resources as well as their access to educational or training opportunities, agricultural services, technologies, and markets (Chiong-Javier 2006, Derrien 2004, Oliveros 1997). These women are thus not only hindered from realizing their fundamental role of providing food security and staving off poverty for their families, but also from addressing their overall personal wellbeing. Agricultural or farm women often have meager options for addressing their most basic concerns. However, for an increasing number of them, the most viable option for breaking away from some measure of marginalization and ensuring their family's continued survival is to enter the domestic sphere of micro agricultural marketing (Garcia 2004, PPI 2004).