Gender and the Agriculture Workforce in Morocco

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     While in Morocco, the most interesting thing I learned and observed is how women are total participants in the workforce. Our tour guide informed us that King Mohammed V encouraged women to be active members of society and the workforce. Morocco produced the first women pilot in the Arab world in 1951. According to the Technical Manager at the IBerry, a woman herself, women make up a good amount of the workforce in the agricultural sector. Women serve as sorters and middle management administrators at the IBerry packing plant and other plants. Women also actively lead supply chain management at the ports for both the government and private companies. 

    In the United States, women are underrepresented in S.T.E.M. and agriculture industries. Historically, women have had to fight to be complete and active participants in the workforce and even when given access, they were discriminated against for specific jobs. To come to Morocco and learn that women have been empowered and respected in the workforce for decades was a pleasant surprise. It was great to see in-person women playing an important role in food production and supply chain management. I hope that one day in the United States we can see the involvement of women in S.T.E.M. and agriculture at the level it is in Morocco. 

Comments

  1. Allison BelkeirJune 1, 2023 at 12:35 PM

    The amount of women in the workforce was surprising to me as well. I was not expecting to see so many women in restaurants, shops, and in the IBerry processing facility. I was expecting women more in the clothing shops and not working as much. I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of women working that we saw, and I really liked that there were so many women in the workforces, especially in IBerry. Additionally, from the Al Akwayan University tour today they told us there was a majority of the engineering students and overall the majority of their students were women and were majority STEM student. I totally agree with your hope for the U.S. to see more women in STEM and Ag. I think we are moving in that direction but its not as openly wanted and promoted.

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