In movies, the sequel seldom lives up to the legacy of the first film.
The same dithering and weakened purpose are affecting the third
conference of world rural women that is to be held in October in Spain.
“We don’t know if any NFU women will attend because of concerns about
its value,” said Shannon Storey of the National Farmers Union.
Carolyn Van Dine, president of the Canadian Farm Women’s Network, said
it was hard to find the real farmers among the bureaucrats at the
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second conference in Washington, D.C., in 1998.
“There is some concern about the Spanish conference, about how to
participate in a meaningful way.”
And Margaret Munro, executive director of the Federated Women’s
Institutes of Canada, said her group has had no information about the
approaching conference.
“The last conference was a dead loss with more government bureaucrats
there …. Nothing was brought to closure. It was poorly organized and
not what the women wanted.”
While these representatives of Canada’s biggest farm women’s groups
have their doubts, they would like to see a successful conference. But
that requires the Spanish organizers to be sensitive to the activist
goals of grassroots women, as well as financial support from
governments to help women get to Madrid.
Van Dine said without government money, there will be few Canadians
there.
“I won’t be going,” she said.
“We’ve been asking Agriculture Canada if they are sending an official
delegation. Nothing’s being done.”
She said the federal government finds the money to take marketing
teams on world sales missions, but it appears farm women are “very,
very low on Canada’s agenda.”
- ot all of the 35 Canadian women who attended the Washington conference
received federal or provincial money.
More optimistic is Robin Fenell, chair of the Saskatchewan Women’s
Agricultural Network. She plans to go, even though official assistance
is non-existent and conference information is scarce.
She said the first conference held in Australia in 1994 effectively
persuaded the Australian government to recognize its farm women. She
hopes the Spanish conference can be as effective for grassroots women
to network.
But Storey thinks the flaws in the Washington conference are showing
again. There is no time on the Spanish agenda for input at the 21/2 day
gathering. The workshops are full of papers to be presented with little
time for discussion, especially if 1,500 women attend, which is what
organizers are expecting.
Documents from conference organizers say the event is “designed to be
very participative and to cover the issues rural women themselves are
most interested in.”
Storey is skeptical, but she plans to ask organizers if they will
accept two papers from the NFU outlining its work with peasant farmers
in Central America and its national survey of farm family labour
patterns.
While organizers have promised more social time, Storey said the women
would prefer time to “really work on issues”.
