Women in rural areas in Egypt are not fully integrated into the agriculture value chain, leaving them with limited means to contribute to their household and increase their income. For them to work, they need to find an opportunity which allows them to work from home. At the same time, Egypt incurs annual losses equivalent to EGP 500million of its tomato production, based on 2020 estimates, which puts a strain on the food security system and the economic market.
Using a social behavioral change approach, Feed the Future Egypt Rural Agribusiness Strengthening, a USAID-funded activity, worked with women of the city of Armant, Luxor, to build their capacities and train them in making sun-dried tomatoes on the roofs of their houses and selling them to neighbouring hotels and restaurants. This not only creates a work opportunity and additional income for the women and families of Armant, but also creates a solid value chain where tomatoes that would have gone to waste are used to create a new high-quality product by local women, which is then sold to local businesses which would in turn use it or sell it to visitors, tourists, or residents.
This initiative is a prime example of how introducing new concepts can be integrated into societies and cultures to help them transform, learn, and grow. Through working with 31 women on changing their behaviors and guiding them to use the means available to them to work, they were all successfully trained as part of this pilot initiative to be able to make sun-dried tomatoes from their houses, leading to an increase in their household income. Additionally, the initiative was able to reduce losses in the tomato value chain and the market system, since the women were able to sell their sun-dried tomatoes to one of the major hotels in Luxor. The initiative also highlights the importance of food security and reducing produce and food loss especially considering water scarcity, which is a key factor affecting food security in Egypt and other developing countries especially. The initiative also portrays a climate change mitigation success story, where the women were able to reduce emissions and use natural resources through using solar energy in making their product, in addition to using trays created from recycle palm tree waste, which would typically be disposed of through burning them.
