Gender roles in agriculture

[1] In particular, pastoralist, ethnic minority, indigenous and rural women continue to face numerous obstacles when trying to access and control natural resources, technological devices and agricultural services; also, they are not involved in processes of decision-making.

[2][3] According to the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, women usually have a harder time obtaining land, tools and knowledge than men, especially in developing countries.

[4][5][6] In general, women account for a greater share of agricultural employment at lower levels of economic development, as inadequate education, limited access to basic infrastructure and markets, high-unpaid work burden and poor rural employment opportunities outside agriculture severely limit women’s opportunities for off-farm work.

About half of the labour force in agriculture is female in several countries in Southeast Asia, including Cambodia, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic and Viet Nam.

They tend to be concentrated in the poorest countries, where alternative livelihoods are not available, and they maintain the intensity of their work in conditions of climate-induced weather shocks and in situations of conflict.

Generally, the women employed in agriculture are more likely to be engaged as contributing family workers whereas men are more likely to be engaged on their own account as workers generating an income.In addition, women often spend more time than men on activities such as food processing and food preparation for the household, child and elder care, water and fuel collection and other unpaid household duties.

[citation needed] According to agro-historian Jane Adams, the middle 20th century brought a change in which the centralization of agriculture eliminated many of the tasks considered part of the "female" role.

Some writers have considered Alberta's highly gendered division of farm life to be not only inefficient from an agricultural standpoint, but deleterious to the integrity of marriage relationships as well.

Across Canada, and also in the United States, the assignment of roles tends to be more egalitarian on organic and Certified Naturally Grown farms than on "conventional" ones.

Slavic-speaking societies tended to follow the general Indo-European pattern of patrilineality, passing down property and rights from father to son.

Uralic-speaking societies, on the other hand, had a relatively egalitarian system in which land was considered to be the domain of a larger extended family or folk group, without rigid boundaries between individual homesteads.

In the years leading up to the Revolution, as the remnants of feudalism disintegrated, many Russian farm families joined artels (артели), or cooperatives.

The cooperatives practiced (at least in theory) equal consideration of men's and women's opinions in making collective decisions, which was a sharp contrast to the feudal method.

Moreover, as the Empire became more connected by rail and road, the rural residents of central and southern Russia gained knowledge of Uralic-based farm operation systems (which had survived in the north and east).

The effect on gender roles varied: workers of both sexes were assigned to do similar tasks, but managers and overseers were mostly male, though there was no fixed rule or custom that established this as absolute.

Fieldworkers often worked in mixed-gender teams, though in the Caucasian and Middle Asian republics an informal segregation by sex was maintained, following local (and ultimately Islamic) traditions.

Throughout the Union, state-farm administrators tended to have little regard for marital relationships: marriage was considered part of the workers' personal lives, which needed not enter into the world of economic labor.

On collective farms as well, conjugal collaboration is a respected and encouraged part of the overall dynamic, and couples often work as units within the larger framework.

Finnish agriculture tends to follow a modern form of what is recognizably the Uralic system, though the influence of western Europe (particularly in Finland's west half) has brought a greater consciousness of private property.

[11] However, in recent years, women are viewed as a legal business holder giving them increasing recognition on the farm enabling them to have input on crucial decisions.

[13] This has been controversial among individuals living in rural communities, as many people see the tortilla making process as having high importance in the traditions of their culture.

It is usually women who must carry large water containers home from the stream or well in these cases, even though it is men who usually lift most other heavy loads on the Brazilian ranch, such as harvest sacks.

[17][16] In addition, gender relations that devalue women's role in agriculture, often regarded as helpers and not farmers, further promote the perception that men hold the authority and decision-making power.

[16] In a lot of African countries nowadays, women rights are secondary in the sense that males dominant in assets, ownership, and education.

[20] Research showed that equine assisted rural women to finish their chores earlier, which provides females more time for children care.

An essential step toward increasing agricultural output would be encouraging and supporting women to assume leadership positions in the farming sector.

Nine women produce vegetables for sale in the domestic market (okra or tomatoes) or export (green beans) and feed small ruminants such as sheep and beef cattle.

[27] For example, despite the significant role they play in managing it, women frequently face obstacles in accessing irrigation water for the cultivation of crops and for raising livestock.

[28] This is mainly due to insecurity of land tenure and to their marginal involvement in water governance institutions and user associations, where they are often under-represented and excluded from decision-making processes.

Promoting women's participation in decision-making processes at all levels is therefore a particularly important aspect of empowerment as it leads to wider social and economic changes.