ABSTRACT
Over the past two decades, existing documentation of women in the agricultural sector has surveyed topics such as agricultural restructuring and land reform, international trade agreements and food trade, land ownership and rural development and rural feminisms. Many studies have focused on either the high-income countries of the global North or the low-income countries of the global South. This separation suggests that the North has little to learn from the South, or that there is little shared commonality across the global dividing line.
Fletcher and Kubik cross this political, economic, and ideological division by drawing together authors from 5 continents. They discuss the situation for women in agriculture in 13 countries worldwide, with two chapters that cover international contexts. The authors blur the boundaries between academic and organizational authors and their contributors include university-based researchers, gender experts, development consultants, and staff of agricultural research centers and international organizations (i.e., Oxfam, the United Nations World Food Program). The common thread connecting these diverse authors is an emphasis on practical and concrete solutions to address the challenges, such as lack of access to resources and infrastructure, lack of household decision-making power, and gender biases in policymaking and leadership, still faced by women in agriculture around the world. Ongoing issues in climate change will exacerbate many of these issues and several chapters also address environment and sustainability.
This book is of great interest to readers in the areas of gender studies, agriculture, policy studies, environmental studies, development and international studies.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part 1|65 pages
Women's agricultural work
chapter 1|10 pages
Australia Understanding the “local” and “global”
chapter 4|21 pages
International4 The System of Rice Intensification and its impacts on women
part 2|53 pages
Gendering sustainability and food security
chapter 6|12 pages
Zimbabwe6 “Livelihoods in a sack”
chapter 7|13 pages
Burkina Faso7 Diversifying the garden
chapter 8|15 pages
India8 Reviving and strengthening women's position and agency in ensuring household food security
part 3|75 pages
Women's empowerment in policy and finance
chapter 9|14 pages
Tanzania Improving agricultural land security for women
chapter 11|17 pages
Kenya11 Can sustainability be enGENDERed through informal microfinance?
chapter 13|18 pages
International13 The rise of institutional food procurement
part 4|61 pages
Working for social change