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The current study uses field survey data from members of five farmer producer companies in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal and assesses the benefits of membership. The real income of member farmers increased by more than 30 per cent after joining farmer producer companies. The access to inputs like seeds, farm chemicals, and farm machines; to weather advisory and storage services; and also, to output markets, improved after joining farmer producer companies. The members were found to market 100 per cent of their produced food grains through farmer producer companies at minimum support prices. Member farmers were found to have stronger networks and greater temporal and informational efficiency. With nearly 40 per cent of members women, these farmer producer companies have emerged as instrumental in empowering them, improving their livelihood and incomes in the patriarchal and rural societal setup. However, even though these collectives are benefitting the rural economy, it was also found that more investment is needed to create local infrastructure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the drivers of farmers' dissatisfaction with market-specification contracts for finger millet crop in Kenya. The researcher analysed data from 336 farmers contracted by USOMI, out of which a sub-sample of 146 farmers who grew millet in 2021 was analysed using a probit model and descriptive analysis approach, which showed that asymmetric information related to the role of the contracting firm, lack of adequate understanding of the contract, poor pricing, and input market imperfections are some of the critical constraints and sources of dissatisfaction in the commercialisation of millet farming in Western Kenya. On the other hand, farmers' satisfaction is driven by access to market and reasonable prices offered by the spot market traders. While the study found out that productivity and pricing were not gendered, it was observed that women were generally satisfied with contract farming. Consequently, contractual schemes should integrate complementary factors such as input provision. While the results do not show explicit benefits to women farmers, they do allow for the backing of contract farming in rural development programs to reduce gender inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Peru, formal and informal organizations are key actors in promoting agroecological farming and related social goals but struggle to make significant changes for gender equality. In this study, I seek to understand how organizations conceptualize their role in gender equality throughout project design, implementation, and presentation. While the organizations designed their projects around organizational change, the implementation and presentation of their work focused on improving financial security and agricultural literacy for individual women rather than systemic conditions. Despite this, their efforts underscored the importance of women's contributions and furthered the conversation about gender in Peruvian agriculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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There has been broad interest in the so-called rise of women farmers in United States (US) agriculture. Researchers have elucidated the diverse ways farmers 'perform' gender, while also examining how engaging in a masculine-coded industry like agriculture shapes individuals' gendered identities as well as their social and mental wellbeing. While illuminating, this work is mostly focused on sustainable or direct-market farmers, with surprisingly little research examining women on conventional row crops operations. This paper works to fill this empirical gap and further theorize gender-agriculture intersections through analyzing interviews with Iowa women row-crop farmers to understand the ways they perceive their gendered identities, and how they see them shaping their farming experience and mental wellbeing. Deploying a conceptual understanding of gender as both discursive and embodied as well as relational and fluid, I find respondents see themselves operating in a somewhat liminal gender identity, where they feel adept at moving between masculinized spaces of agriculture and more feminized domains of homes and office jobs. Critically, while women rarely expressed stress about doing "masculine" coded agricultural labor, they had more complex feelings towards either disliking or imperfectly completing feminized care and reproductive labor. Younger women expressed particular ambivalence about assuming the identity of farmer while also fulfilling gendered norms around (heterosexual) marriage and childbearing. The liminality of women's gender performance also cut both ways, and while they feel able to access different gendered spaces some feel they are not fully accepted in either. I conclude by reflecting on what these particular forms of gendered subjectivity might mean for women's mental wellbeing and how agencies might better support gender equity in agriculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change is increasing challenges in the agricultural sector for smallholder farmers. A key element in successful formulation of adaptation strategies is the analysis of vulnerability to climate change. This study examines smallholder farmers' contextual vulnerability to climate change through their perceived vulnerability and focuses on gendered narratives and power structures in the Taita Hills, Kenya. The key methods are semi-structured interviews (N = 28) and a critical discourse analysis. The collected data consists of two-headed household interviews, single-headed household interviews, and key informant interviews with different stakeholders from the agriculture sector. Results indicate that contextual vulnerability can form a baseline for understanding individuals' possibilities to adapt to changing environmental and climatic conditions. Outcome vulnerability analysis, that treats vulnerability as an endpoint output following mitigation actions, offers highly relevant information, but it is not alone enough for understanding the challenges and possibilities of climate change adaptation. Women and men farmers' coping and adaptation response strategies did not differ notably, which supports the criticism of the gendered nature of vulnerability discourse. Differences in strategies appeared to be more linked in intersectional aspects between farmers in single-headed and two-headed households. Furthermore, the vulnerable women narrative did not reflect women farmers' agency and centrality in the agriculture sector. The discourse of climate change adaptation should be corrected towards addressing structural challenges that can place people in a vulnerable position within diverse contextual conditions and intersecting attributes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research investigated how women employ various adaptation and coping mechanisms to alleviate food insecurity resulting from the impacts of climate change. The documentation of the debate on the role of women in adaptation and coping with climate change is relatively limited. Climate change's effect on food security in semi-arid areas could potentially increase the population of individuals residing in severe poverty. Over the past three decades, Africa's sub-tropics have experienced irregular rainfall and prolonged droughts, which have negatively affected agriculture and food production. This research utilized a combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches within a mixed-method design, guided by the pragmatic paradigm. Based on the results of the study, water harvesting/dam construction and income generating projects (IGPs) were identified as the most effective coping strategies for women. This study recommends implementing awareness campaigns to educate women farmers about the negative effects of climate change and the need for integrated and comprehensive capacity-building frameworks. By understanding the challenges women face in adapting to and coping with climate change, it is hoped that more effective and sustainable solutions can be developed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to fill the existing literature gap by exploring tourism's effect on women's employment in 42 African countries while considering advanced econometric modelling. This study applies the panel GLS model, the two-step system GMM, and quantile regression (QR) to evaluate the data from 1996 to 2020. There is evidence to suggest that tourism has a substantial impact on women's employment. Some models are also run to examine how tourism affects women's work in agriculture, industry, and the service sector. Although tourism increases overall female labour force participation, it has a negative coefficient for explaining female labour force participation in agriculture. In fact, tourism has a substantial positive effect on the number of working women in both the service and manufacturing sectors. This research adds to the literature by highlighting the role that tourism plays in facilitating the transition of women from the agricultural workforce to those in the industrial and service sectors. The findings of this study have valuable contributions for future research since they show the importance of women's employment opportunities in agriculture, industry, and service sectors and inform policy discussions on the impact of the tourism industry on women's employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ruins of stone‐walled towns, villages, and homesteads mark the residential nodes of Bokoni, a polity that thrived in northeastern South Africa from the late 15th to the early 19th century and extended over about 30 000 km2. These residential structures are generally observable on aerial photographs and satellite imagery, but with a few exceptions, the terraced gardens and fields are less visible. Lidar data from one of Bokoni's towns—Khutwaneng—has made finding the fields easier. In this 17th to early 19th‐century town, all homesteads have adjacent terraced gardens or fields, irrespective of whether they are well‐established or newly built. Lidar imagery of terraces that were being built in newly established homesteads supports the view that most terraces grew over time and were the result of quotidian actions by farmers. The pervasiveness of terraces throughout the town suggests that urban farming was an entrenched component of Bokoni's urban life. In southern Africa, daily farming duties were historically performed by women, and it is likely that this was also the case in Bokoni. Understanding the terraces as the product of women's quotidian labor allows for reflection on the role that women and their actions as farmers played in shaping the Khutwaneng farmscape, and it in shaping them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent decades, rural livelihood has been restructured dramatically in the Global South as a result of neoliberal transformations such as the removal of state subsidies for small‐scale farmers, privatization of agricultural state economic enterprises, rising control of global agribusiness firms on agricultural production, expropriation of rural commons and private farmland for mega‐investments in natural resources. Under the Justice and Development Party (AKP) governments, Turkey has been a prime example of these patterns of accumulation and dispossession. Additionally, the country has been facing coal rush policies of the AKP governments with the aim of utilizing domestic coal to overcome the problem of energy supply security. In this paper, I argue that rural change and patterns of proletarianization in the rural extractive regions are inherently gendered and women assume a central role in the production and social reproduction of the classes of extractive labour. Drawing on 3‐year research conducted in the Soma Coal Basin, Western Anatolia, Turkey, the paper examines the transformation of women's (i) petty commodity production as unpaid family farmers, (ii) agricultural wage work and (iii) reproductive work as miners' wives and subsistence farmers as a result of rising private sector coal investments since the mid‐2000s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The triadic comparison of technology options (tricot) approach to participatory varietal selection has been demonstrated to scale out the on‐farm testing of elite candidate crop varieties. In this study, we evaluated elite clones of cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz) using the tricot approach. We sought to (1) synthesize on‐farm trial data from two cycles evaluating different sets of elite cassava clones; (2) assess the agronomic performance of elite cassava clones considering sociodemographic and climatic factors; and (3) assess the performance of elite cassava clones for both agronomic and food quality traits. The study involved 10 districts in Uganda, two cycles/seasons of evaluation, 20 elite cassava clones, one check variety, and 294 men and 320 women farmers. Our results indicate that the agronomic performance of elite cassava clones was influenced more by geographic than sociodemographic factors. Our analysis identified the number of days with rainfall higher than 20 mm as the most influencing climatic factor over agronomic performance. Further, the study identified superior elite cassava clones UG110164, UGC14170, and UG120193 as promising candidate varieties for release, targeting food products. Overall, our study emphasizes the important contribution of end‐users to crop improvement and provides insights into use of tricot on‐farm testing methodology to evaluate elite cassava clones during cassava variety development in Uganda, which can be used to support decision making for variety release. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Efforts for empowering women have been a priority agenda in development because women make crucial contributions to society. One of the significant issues that women are well positioned to address is the stunting or impaired development of children due to poor nutrition. As this issue is a threat for national development in Indonesia, the central government has initiatives to tackle stunting, and one of these is the Sustainable Food Garden, or Pekarangan Pangan Lestari (P2L). The innovative program is designed to prevent stunting by empowering women, which also contributes to the attainment of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This research is focused on the implementation of the P2L initiative in Jombang Regency in East Java, Indonesia. More specifically, it explores how the program capacity, especially at the organizational level, plays a significant role in the implementation of P2L through women's involvement in Kelompok Wanita Tani (KWT) or the Women Farmers' Group. The fieldwork research was performed in four KWTs villages in Kesamben District, one of the focal locations for addressing stunting and food insecurity in Jombang. By using qualitative research methods involving interviews, observation, and analysis of relevant documents, this study finds that within the implementation of the P2L program in Jombang Regency, the program capacity, especially at the organizational level has been fulfilled well. Such program capacity, which includes political capacity, analytical capacity, and operational capacity, has led stakeholders' commitment to fulfill the program's goals and objective, and above all to empower women. In this, Women Farmers' Groups (KWTs) have also contributed to improving nutrition, decreasing the prevalence of stunting in Jombang Regency, and supporting economic growth for women and families, and thus the attainment of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This research aims to explore the role of banks in supporting women agriculture entrepreneurs (WAEs) to contribute towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It focusses on the experiences of women entrepreneurs in the agriculture sector, recognising their vital role in driving economic growth and achieving the SDGs. Design/methodology/approach: The study utilises the role congruity theory and the feminist agri-food systems model as its theoretical framework. Qualitative data from 35 WAEs and 7 bank managers (BMs) responsible for agricultural financial services and business development are collected and thematically analysed to achieve the research objectives. Findings: Although BMs claim they offer specialised financial products with dedicated support teams, WAEs express scepticism due to fears of unfavourable deals and excessive requirements. WAEs need more understanding of SDGs but recognise their substantial contributions. BMs acknowledge the need to enhance efforts, improve communication of offers and integrate SDGs across all business operations beyond agriculture and women-centric initiatives. Practical implications: Banks must prioritise gender sensitivity and inclusivity for WAEs, offering tailored financial products and flexible loan structures. Microfinance and strategic marketing can enhance outreach. WAEs benefit from forming associations, accessing support networks, collaborating with banks, government agencies, non-governmental organisations and agricultural associations for mentoring and networking, and achieving the SDGs and sustainable agriculture. Originality/value: The study connects WAEs and banks in achieving SDGs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change persists despite growing attention from a wide range of disciplines. In its 2018 report, the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) called for an urgent global response from all segments of society to counter the impact of climate change. Rural women in developing countries whose livelihoods largely depend on nature are among the most impacted by climate change. Thus, there is no justification for marginalizing rural women or any group in the fight against climate change. But existing literature shows little scientific knowledge on women's participation in climate change project planning and implementation. This study examined rural women's involvement and roles in climate change-related projects and the potential barriers therein. The analysis of in-depth interviews with relevant government officials and women from farmers' and fishers' groups showed that women are involved in climate change projects. But women's involvement is inadequate and constrained by multiple, interlinked sociocultural and other structural challenges. Recommendations for advancing participatory development communication practice beyond stakeholder engagement to focus on strategies for navigating the hindrances to women and other target groups' participation are offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of public breeding programs is to develop and disseminate improved varieties to farmers. This strategy aims at providing farming communities with superior crop varieties than they are growing. However, the strategy rarely considers the needs and preferences of farmers, especially gendered preferences, failing to solve real field problems by addressing the differences and inequalities prevalent in the farming communities. Our research examines how personal, household, agronomic and ecological characteristics of wheat growers in Bihar, India's eastern Indo-Gangetic Plains, affect women and men's wheat trait choices. Data were obtained from 1,003 households where both male and female respondents from the same household were interviewed. We accounted for 23 traits of wheat from a careful assessment of production, environment, cooking quality, market demand, and esthetic criteria. Binomial logistic regression was used to determine women's and men's trait preferences. The results imply that gender influences the preferences of wheat traits. Some traits are favored by both women and men, however, in other instances, there are striking disparities. For example, men choose wheat varieties that are well adapted to extreme climate conditions, have a higher grain yield, and produce chapati with a superior taste, while women prefer wheat types with superior chapati making quality, higher grain yield, and high market prices. Other socioeconomic, agronomic, cultural, and geolocational factors have a considerable impact on trait preferences. These human dimensions of traits preferred by women and men farmers are important for trait combinations to develop breeding product profiles for certain market segments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 lockdown measures exacerbated the struggles of societies with existing inequalities. Given that women are generally the most vulnerable in times of pandemics and associated economic downturns, the study seeks to understand the struggles that female farmers experienced during the COVID-19 crisis and their survival responses and livelihood enhancement. To do this, we organized six women’s focus group discussions and interviewed 145 women farmers in communities within Builsa South and Ada (in Ghana) where farming is one of the major occupations for women. The findings reveal that the pandemic severely disrupted women’s access to farm inputs, markets, and farming activities amidst the absence of COVID-19 relief funds. Consequently, female farmers had to adopt multiple alternative livelihood strategies to meet their basic needs. But, the nature of the adaptation strategy adopted depended on the intersections of gender, household characteristics and remittance flows. Female farmers from migrant households with larger household sizes temporarily migrated as an alternative livelihood strategy compared to those from non-migrant households and with smaller family sizes. This distributional consequence of COVID-19 is important for government agencies to carefully consider when forming future response policies to pandemics in general and the rural agricultural sector specifically since it has implications for food security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND: Cassava processing is a crucial source of livelihood for rural farmers and processors in Nigeria and Cameroon. This study investigated the varietal effect on the processing productivity of women farmer processors within their working environment and compared this with the food product quality as evaluated by the processors and the field yield. Field trials were established in Nigeria (Benue and Osun state) and Cameroon (Littoral region). Eight cassava genotypes were evaluated. These eight varieties included newly bred genotypes, commercial checks and varieties provided and preferred by the processors. The roots of these genotypes were harvested and processed into gari and eba by processors. The time of each processing step was recorded. Processors assessed the quality of the roots and food products using pairwise ranking. RESULTS: In the field trials in Cameroon and Nigeria (Benue state), the newly bred genotypes showed superior performance in terms of dry matter content and fresh and dry yield. During processing, genotypes showed significant variation for most assessed parameters in both countries. Some newly bred varieties exhibited lower productivity that can make them more prone to drudgery than the local commercial checks and the varieties provided and preferred by the processors. Newly bred varieties were mostly ranked higher or equal to processors' preferred varieties concerning fresh root and food product quality. In the Cameroon location there were significant varietal differences in processing productivity and drudgery index which suggest that the particular processing methods there ‐ such as pressing methods and fermentation time ‐ cause these varietal differences to matter more. CONCLUSIONS: The varieties that were tested were observed to differ in yield, product quality, processing productivity, and potential drudgery levels. Some breeders' germplasms displayed a combination of increased yields and good product quality and good processor productivity. Those varieties that showed low processor productivity should be avoided during selection to avoid increased labour burden and associated drudgery of women processors. Further research is recommended to enhance food product color, latent culinary qualities, and processing productivity of newly bred varieties to improve acceptability and reduce processing drudgery for women. © 2023 The Authors. Journal of The Science of Food and Agriculture published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society of Chemical Industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated food security governance in relation to taming the endemic starvation for peace and sustainable development in Africa. Food and nutrition security remain a multi-dimensional concept to ensure sustainability of the food system by 2030. It is a prerequisite to meaningful development as starving people are not capable of learning, innovating, nor prioritizing sustainable development. The COVID-19 preventive measures such as lockdowns and curfews, and persistent conflict in Africa, plunged deteriorating food insecurity into steep descent that necessitates collaborative efforts and partnerships to change the trajectory. The partnerships will restore livelihoods, and eliminate starvation, disease, abject poverty, wars and eventually restore peace. Data for the study were collected through systematic review of scholarly reviewed publications obtained from Access to Global Online Research in Agriculture (AGORA) database, University of Nairobi and Google search engines. The objectives of this paper, therefore, are to analyse underlying causes of persistent starvation in Africa, examine the factors that contribute to food security issues degenerating into conflict, and highlight the role of governance in finding lasting solutions to persistent starvation in the continent. However, it was revealed that, there is congruence that conflict and disease (COVID-19) may require more attention, with unanimous calls for the adoption of multilateralism in food governance as strategy to handle the nexus issues on food, water, energy, climate, economy, conflict and disease. Attention is also required to be focused on innovations supporting small-scale farmers, especially women farmers who are the most vulnerable, to benefit from autonomous measures (such as climate-smart agriculture practices) and adaptation to climate extremes. Conclusions are drawn on the best possible strategies available to mitigate endemic starvation in Africa, the urgent need for joint efforts to eliminate conflict – induced food insecurity, and emphasis on a systems approach to tackle nexus issues (Food-Water-Energy-Climate-Economy-Conflict and Disease) to ensure sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Food justice scholars have criticized alternative food networks (AFNs) for lacking concern about gender, class, race, and ethnicity, thus not addressing structural inequalities. This paper further suggests that the incorporation of social justice into AFNs' on-the-ground operations is critical in creating a more sustainable and just agri-food system that challenges the industrial and corporate-controlled food system. By exploring an urban–rural mutual aid cooperative in southwest China, this paper highlights a localized AFN that has successfully cultivated close social ties between ethnic minority small farmers in remote areas and urban consumers. Through these ties, consumers' desires for safe food are satisfied and some small producers' livelihoods have improved. Yet, competing values between supporting small farmers and satisfying consumers' needs create tensions in the co-op's daily operation. Importantly, I demonstrate that failing to incorporate social justice into its construction of social embeddedness, existing inequalities of gender, class, and ethnicity within the co-op not only go unchallenged but rather underlie consumers' trust in food quality and make women farmers all but invisible. Developing a situated and feminist framework of AFNs, this paper contributes to existing literature on AFNs by challenging and complicating the assumption of social embeddedness derived from Anglo-American contexts, as well as by focusing on women's perceptions and lived experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motivation: In rural sub-Saharan Africa, patriarchal social norms and customs often lead to unequal resource access, decision-making power, and intra-household power relations between women and men co-heads of smallholder farm households. Household methodologies are gender-transformative approaches that aim to achieve gender equality and empower women by improving intra-household gender relations. Evidence of the impact of such approaches on women's empowerment is still scarce. Purpose: We assess the effects of a programme that introduces participatory intra-household decision-making to challenge gender relations within households on women's empowerment. The programme was delivered to monogamous couples who head smallholder coffeefarming households in rural south-west Tanzania. Methods and approach: We combine (quasi-)experimental quantitative and qualitative methods to assess the programme's impact on women's empowerment and how that impact fits with women's valued domains of empowerment and individual pathways to empowerment. Findings: Awareness-raising couple seminars, the programme's least intensive intervention, increased women's access to livestock. Intensive coaching in participatory decision-making increased women's control over household coffee income—a priority for women. Couple seminars increased women's highly valued involvement in strategic farm decisions—intensive coaching increased it further. Access to personal income, however, valued by women for independent decision-making for their households' wellbeing, did not change. Policy implications: Gender-transformative approaches that challenge domestic gender relations can increase women's access to household income and resources, and increase their participation in farming decisions. Such approaches need to be complemented by interventions to increase women's human capital, knowledge of enterprises, and personal resources. Catering for women's diverse pathways towards empowerment may increase their effectiveness. Challenging deep gender norms requires long-term engagement and trust between change agents and communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using an ecofeminist reading of Isaiah 5:1‐7, this article offers the Song of the Vineyard as a poem spoken from the perspective of the woman experiencing the social crisis in 8th‐century Judah. Using a powerful rhetoric to convey her message, the woman dared to speak out against the unjust circumstances that threatened the well‐being of her people and land. This paper also explores the role of the vineyard as an agent that raises its voice against injustice. Lastly, this paper creates a dialogue between an ancient voice and the voice of Asian women today. It shows the struggles of Asian women such as the Kendeng women farmers to achieve social justice and justice for the natural environment. This paper calls for churches and the Christian community to hear the voices of the land and women and to take significant actions to end the violence against women and the land. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sweetpotato is climate smart crop, grown with limited external inputs (fertilisers, pesticides, less labour) making it an attractive crop for resource-constrained smallholder farmers. It is also a major cash and food crop for many countries in sub-Saharan Africa. However, adoption of the high yielding and nutritious improved varieties has been disappointingly low. This study uses qualitative methods to explore the barriers and enablers of farmer varietal replacement and adoption. Unlike the extant quantitative studies that identify the determinants of adoption, we delve deeper into understanding the reasons for or against the preference for specific varieties. We used a rich set of information collected via focus group discussions which explore why farmers prefer certain varieties over others and how they perceive the new improved varieties from the national breeding programs. Doing so enabled us to unravel specific traits or trait combinations that farmers seek and identify those that they perceive needing improvement. We find that the most preferred traits were 'yield' and 'good taste'. Implying that the neglect of sensory attributes by breeders contributes to the low adoption of improved sweetpotato varieties. Moreover, we find that altruism among the respondents plays an important role in farmer use of, and sharing of information about improved sweetpotato varieties. Women and men farmers obtained most of their information from neighbours, NGOs and radios. For women, the most important source of planting materials doubled as their most important source of information. Thus, concerted efforts to minimise information constraints are essential for unravelling the adoption puzzle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gender‐differentiated roles, responsibilities, access, rights, and knowledge gaps shape women's vulnerability to climate change. This is especially critical for women farmers whose livelihoods are climate‐dependent. A key component in building women farmers' resilience to climate change is deepening their adaptive capacity. Therefore, this research sought to measure the adaptive capacity of women farmers from two unique districts of Ghana using the sustainable livelihood capitals and investigate how access to climate information and the uptake of climate action can influence women's adaptive capacity. Rural women farmers (n = 497) were interviewed through a survey and supported with key informant interviews from six agricultural staff at the selected districts. The adaptive capacity of respondents was rated moderate at 0.405. Differences between the adaptive capacity of women from different agroecological zones (Dormaa East—0.422; East Gonja—0.388) were statistically insignificant (p > 0.05). All climate information mediums except the TV medium had a significant prediction on women farmers' adaptive capacity. The odds of a decreasing relationship of predictor variables, such as extension officer medium, radio, and adaptation action, require strategic structuring to accrue holistic benefit. The study thus recommends deepening women's benefit from extension services by attracting and retaining female extensionists, while training extensionists on tailored techniques for engaging female farmers. Again, extensionists who report high outreach to female farmers should be incentivized. Traditional and modern Information and Communication Technology mediums must be explored and integrated as alternatives. Co‐benefit practices for both adaptation and mitigation should be encouraged among women farmers to deepen climate action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Farm women are often forced to work in extremely hazardous conditions due to their limited access to improved agricultural technologies. This circumstance makes agricultural work physically demanding, requiring significant physiological effort and the maintenance of good posture. It is also very exhausting, timeconsuming, and stressful. The study was designed to evaluate and quantify the drudgery involved in the rice-wheat production system for rural women. Three replications of a 10-min work cycle without a break were used to assess the physiological and postural demands of various farm tasks on the female workers. Observations were recorded on farm women workers who were in normal health, without any major illness, and regularly involved in farm operations. In the attempt to obtain and analyze the prioritized drudgery experiences in crop production activities through drudgery assessment and reduction, various ergonomically sound farm tools and implements were provided for crop cultivation and intercultural operations. Data indicating musculoskeletal disorders were analyzed by ergonomics assessment of postural and biomechanical assessments using the Human Physical Drudgery Index (HPDI), resulting in the maximum drudgery reflecting very high risk in transplanting (48.4%), followed by threshing (47.2%), load carrying (46.00%), and harvesting (45.14%). For physiological ergonomics quantifications, the most drudgery-prone activities in the rice-wheat production system, i.e., transplanting, harvesting, threshing & post-harvest, and load carrying, were evaluated, and it was found that drudgery is caused by different activities with reflects working energy expenditure rate ranging from ~7.00 to 12.00 (kJ/min) and total cardiac cost of work (TCCW)~ 331.00 to 524.00. Multivariate regression analysis was employed to drive relationships between energy expenditure rate (dependent variable) and other independent variables, such as age, body mass index (BMI), mid-upper arm circumference (MUAC), calf circumference (CC), skinfold measurements, body density (D), % body fat, fat mass, and fat-free mass (kg). It was found that energy expenditure rate during various crop production practices is positively correlated with independent variables (R= 0.721, R2 = 0.520, Adjusted R2 = 0.518, Standard Error of Estimate= 0.0324, Durbin-Watson= 1.531). It was found that with higher physiological parameters, the corresponding energy expenditure is maximized relating to the drudgery in respective agricultural activities. The present study addressed the magnitude of drudgery for women farmers in the rice-wheat production system and its mitigation strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to examine the correlations between the agroecological status of farms and their viability in agro-sylvo-pastoral systems located in the savannah areas of West Africa. The methodology is based on farm surveys (to assess agroecological farm status) and on farmers' focus group discussions (to assess viability at the farm level). Agroecological farm status was established by considering 15 agricultural practices: 4 on by-products recycling; 4 on soil protection; 4 on industrial inputs limitation; 2 on smart use of natural resources; 1 on cropping diversification; An agroecological (Ae) scoring system was used to establish an Ae ranking by farm type. Farm level viability was established by men and women farmers' focus group discussions: Inventory of viability enhancing and viability-weakening factors; Rating intensity of each viability factor. A scoring system was used to establish Viability ranking by farm type. Four iconic farm types were considered: Small crop-oriented (T1); Medium-size crop-oriented (T2); Large crop-livestock oriented (T3); Livestock-oriented (T4). The findings demonstrate that the viability of agro-sylvo-pastoral systems is not solely dependent on their agroecological status. The ranking of the four farm types, from the first to the last position, is T4, T2, T3, and T1 for agroecology; and T2, T3, T4 and T1 for viability. Our study reveals that T1 farms in Koumbia are not highly agroecological or highly viable. Similarly, farms with the largest cultivated areas (T3) and herds (T4) are not the most agroecological or viable. The best balance between agroecology and viability is struck by T2 farms. We recommend promoting the development of T2 farms that demonstrate the best congruence between agroecology and viability as a model for T1, T3, and T4 farmers. Depending on the agroecological status, one farm could be more or less viable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the social fabric of US agriculture continues to change, it is important to investigate the set of challenges that minority farmers face. Given women’s increasing leadership in agriculture and their traditional involvement in rural communities, we took an othering lens to position them as the centered voice to evaluate the suite of challenges they perceive to experience as compared to their male counterparts and in relation to other minority farmers. Data collected from 180 women farmers indicated that responsibilities stemming from their family caregiving role and the current agricultural system exert more pressure on women than on men. Yet, family caregiving responsibilities represent a greater burden for women farmers than the current agricultural system, a finding that responding women perceived to be reversed for men. Despite their disadvantaged position in agriculture, participating women perceived they were in better standing than Latin, first generation, transplant, and African American farmers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Livestock production is more than just producing meat, milk and eggs. It provides many crucial services world-wide, particularly for small-scale and women farmers in the Global South. But these important services are often only insufficiently considered in the current debate on livestock's negative impact on the environment and climate, our authors claim. An overview of livestock's multiple roles and its intricate position in food systems - and a plea for context-specific and multifaceted approaches in developing sustainable solutions for tomorrow's animal husbandry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women remain a key driver of agricultural growth due to their large population and contribution to the farm labour force. Yet, these women are vulnerable to several menaces, such as food insecurity and poor well-being, that require them to participate in agricultural commercialisation. Identifying the drivers of market participation will inform them on where to channel their limited resources. Thus, this study assessed the market participation of women bambara nut farmers, its drivers, and its contribution to food security using crop output market participation share, ordered logit, binary logit and the USDA 18 food security questionnaire core module. The study found that smallholder women's market participation or commercialization ranges from 0 to 89.4% with an average of 54.53%, indicating a medium level of commercialization, and the smallholder women farmers have a 45.47% full commercialization gap. The significant factors responsible for their level of market participation were farm size, credit, cooperative membership, output, fertilizer usage, farm machinery, household size, and distance to market. Above half (56.67%) of them were food insecure. However, their food security level increases as the commercialization level increases, indicating that agricultural commercialisation improved household food security. Logistic regression results further revealed that agricultural commercialisation significantly enhanced household food security. The major constraints affecting women farmers are the high cost of inputs, low capital, poor access to credit, restrictions on land usage, poor agricultural pricing, a lack of modern storage facilities, and on-farm and post-harvest losses. These results necessitate the need to support smallholder women with credit, subsidized farm machinery, and fertilizer to promote commercialisation among them, which is needed to be food secure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are few challenges greater than the puzzle of how to move perishable goods from smallholders' fields to final consumers, particularly where transportation barriers abound. Industrial processing can relax the perishability constraint and improve smallholders' options. In Iringa, Tanzania, multiple tomato processing establishments and traditional marketing agents are available for farmers to use. Information about the channels is expected to be vital for producers to choose optimally. In this study, we collected field data from 286 smallholder farmers and analyzed their market channel choice using the random utility model implemented with multinomial logit regression. Revenue performance was further evaluated. Our results confirm that access to market information and extension services were associated with higher farm revenue. Women farmers had more concerns than men about lacking information. Market participation differed by size of the business. Farmers with higher harvested quantity were more likely to choose industrial processing. Producers with small farms preferred full marketing service and mid-size farms chose wholesale markets. Agribusiness management scholars may follow similar research design with future attention paid to elicitation of producers' information about the marketing channels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Floriculture as a branch of the horticulture industry is still at a developing stage that needs to be assessed for further orientation in the areas of management, business and economics. The commercialization of ornamental plants and cut flowers is of recent origin in developing economies which have high growth potential, both in domestic and international markets. The study highlights the evolution of the floriculture industry having a management perspective and paving the way for future research directions. The paper conducts a bibliometric analysis and rigorous systematic review of 126 papers published in peer-reviewed journals related to the floriculture industry using the Scientific Procedures and Rationales for Systematic Literature Reviews (SPAR-4-SLR) protocol. The Biblioshiny function of R software and VOS viewer is used for the analysis. The intellectual structure of the floriculture literature is presented through bibliographic coupling and thematic cluster analysis. The findings indicate considerable opportunities for further investigations in the field of floriculture focusing on the inclusion of sustainability practices, the evolution and role of women farmers and entrepreneurs, and supply chain management of floriculture products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study is to calculate the technical efficiency of wine grape production in the South region of Brazil. Specifically, our main objective is to understand the key farm and farmer characteristics that affect agricultural productivity at the municipality level. The data from IBGE's Brazilian Agricultural Census 2017 are used. The analysis is conducted in two stages. In the first stage, production efficiency using a VRS DEA model is estimated. In the second stage, a Tobit model is used to evaluate the main drivers that influence farm efficiency. The results show that maximum efficiency can be achieved in any of the three South Brazilian states. Efficiency is strongly related to factors such as the size of the vineyard. Moreover, the farmer's age, as well as the participation of women and family members in management, also contribute positively to higher levels of farm efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Formal credit plays an important role for the development of the agriculture sector in developing countries because many farmers are characterized as liquidity constrained. Access to credit can increase farmers' purchasing power for inputs and agricultural technology, thus raising the overall productivity. Farmers in Mali are particularly vulnerable to shocks, such as heavy precipitation events. Access to liquidity to increase the resilience of the agricultural sector is essential. Therefore, higher financing volumes are required, which make the analysis of loan demand in agriculture of interest. The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the role of the interest rate, the macroeconomic environment, the agricultural cycle and the gender of the farmer on the loan demand in the agricultural sector from a country in the Sahel. Unique and comprehensive loan data at the farm level, provided by a commercial Malian bank, is used for this analysis. The analysis covers the period from 2010 to 2020. Two different estimation strategies are combined. First, an ordinary least square regression is applied with the granted loan amount as the dependent variable. Second, the machine learning technique, least absolute shrinkage and selection operator, is applied to select the most relevant features to be used as explanatory variables in the estimation. The results reveal that the interest rate, the gross value added, the farmer's gender as well as the agricultural cycle have statistically significant effects on the granted loan demand in agriculture. These results are of interest to policymakers, who deal with financial inclusion as well as market failures, and agricultural financial institutions who could incorporate such information in the design of future loan products to stimulate farmers' loan demand, especially for female farmers. [EconLit Citations: G20, G21, O13, O16, Q14, Q18]. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Impact of climate change on various sectors across the globe is quite evident and the dairy sector is no exemption to the threats of changing climate. Most of the activities in dairy farming are performed by women. Dairy farming is a source of sustainable income for the women in rural areas. Women are more vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change due to their socio-economic position in the society. So, an attempt was made to capture the impacts of climate change on dairy farming from women farmers’ perspective. A total of 360 women farmers were approached for the study. Analytical hierarchy process was used to identify which of the four components and 16 sub-components of dairy farming are most affected due to changing climate. Analysis of farmers’ responses revealed that productive performance was perceived to be the most affected component and average daily milk yield was perceived to be greatly affected due changes in climate.

Mlese village has a large area of agricultural land that has a lot of potential that can be developed. Large and fertile agricultural land has the potential to become a national food barn to support food self-sufficiency programs. Realizing the value of the potential of Mlese village, both according to the aspects of agriculture, economy, and food security and seeing the tourism potential that has not been optimized, it encourages the service team from PGRI Semarang University together with the village community to develop a tourism village which will be called the AGROEDUTOURISM Tourism Village. This activity is a part of the community service program of the PGRI Semarang University service team to assist Mlese villagers to realize a tourist village with three fields developed, namely integrated agriculture, education, and tourism. The method used in this community service activity is through the workshop, training, demonstration, and mentoring methods. Some of the assistance through workshops and trainings that have been carried out, obtained the following results: The program socialization and entrepreneurship motivation workshop of 20 participants were attended by the heads and secretaries of Farmer Groups, Youth Farmer Groups, Pokdarwis Groups, and Women Farmer Groups (WFG) in Mlese village. After the chairpersons and secretaries obtained the workshop materials, they were expected to pass them on to all members. As many as 85% of the participants who attended the integrated farming training were already skilled in demonstrating and practicing the knowledge gained from the resource persons. One of the physical developments made at the AGROEDUTOURISM location is the Green House and has reached 85%. For the education sector, because one of the physical developments made at the AGROEDUTOURISM site is the Green House, and in the village there is a public elementary school whose curriculum includes out-of-class activities (Outing Class). The establishment of the Green House is not only a place for the Community’s integrated agricultural hatchery, but also an Outing Class destination for students at the elementary school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Successful farms—in the public imagination, agricultural policy, and more—tend to be highly profitable and operate at extremely large scales. Research has shown that women are less likely to operate these types of farms, possibly due to their preferences and lifestyle choices. There is evidence, however, that these gaps are additionally the result of differences in access to resources due to gender discrimination. Patterns of inequity in land inheritance and other resources limit women's farm size and choice of crops, and thus their opportunities to farm at larger, more profitable scales. Nonetheless, women farmers also employ creative strategies to make farming work for them. Our study uses 2017 Census of Agriculture data to compare women and men farmers at 7 different farm scales, revealing gendered strategies and comparing men and women farmers on equal footing. This presents a more nuanced picture of women's participation in farming at various scales. Overall, we find that within farm scales, women are often doing just as well as men—usually with fewer or different resources and approaches. Women's unbalanced representation at each farm scale, however, helps to explain why women are not always envisioned as "real farmers" in the popular conscience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Farmers' use of agricultural technology is necessary for reducing poverty. However, women make up most poor smallholder farmers in India and are generally unable to access relevant opportunities. Tandem to supporting women farmers in technology adoption is increasing their empowerment. While women's empowerment has been on policy agendas in India for several years, progress has been slow and results are mixed. Using primary data from West Bengal, this study finds that female farmers with access to agricultural technologies will likely have social advantages over those without, but institutional and social support is necessary to facilitate real empowerment and overall development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Successful farms—in the public imagination, agricultural policy, and more—tend to be highly profitable and operate at extremely large scales. Research has shown that women are less likely to operate these types of farms, possibly due to their preferences and lifestyle choices. There is evidence, however, that these gaps are additionally the result of differences in access to resources due to gender discrimination. Patterns of inequity in land inheritance and other resources limit women's farm size and choice of crops, and thus their opportunities to farm at larger, more profitable scales. Nonetheless, women farmers also employ creative strategies to make farming work for them. Our study uses 2017 Census of Agriculture data to compare women and men farmers at 7 different farm scales, revealing gendered strategies and comparing men and women farmers on equal footing. This presents a more nuanced picture of women's participation in farming at various scales. Overall, we find that within farm scales, women are often doing just as well as men—usually with fewer or different resources and approaches. Women's unbalanced representation at each farm scale, however, helps to explain why women are not always envisioned as "real farmers" in the popular conscience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the association between woman farmers and community well‐being using U.S. county‐level data. We address modeling uncertainty around three measures of community well‐being by using a spatial Bayesian model averaging approach and find that a higher share of farms operated or owned by women in a county is associated with higher rates of new business formation, longer life expectancies, and lower poverty rates. The results are consistent with a growing literature that finds women business owners approach their businesses more holistically, with positive community spillovers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Cowpea is an important food and nutrition security crop in Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania and it is mainly produced by women farmers mainly on a subsistence scale. The majority of these farmers use local varieties despite the availability of improved varieties in the region. Low acceptability and adoption of improved varieties have also hampered cowpea breeding efforts. The low adoption, especially among women farmers, has been attributed to the failure by breeding programs to involve farmers in the process of designing and developing improved varieties with a view to meeting their priorities and preferences. Despite women constituting the majority of cowpea farmers in these countries, no comprehensive gender analysis on cowpea value chain had been instituted to understand the traits that are gender and youth responsive and how to incorporate them in the product profiling so that the developed varieties benefit men, women and youth. The main objective of the gender study was, therefore, to identify preferred traits by different gender groups within the whole cowpea value chain to inform cowpea breeding programs in the three countries. Methods: The study employed quantitative and qualitative methods to elucidate preferences, including value chain mapping, a quantitative survey of farmers, focus group discussions and key informant interviews targeting farmers/consumers, traders, policymakers and processors. Results and discussion: Results showed that the top-ranking traits in order of importance across the countries and gender were; (1) high grain yield, (2) good grain taste, (3) early maturity time, (4) large grain size, (5) good leaf taste and (6) short cooking time. It was further noted that different gender groups preferred almost similar traits though minor variations were noted in terms of prioritization of these traits. These results have had two major influences on our cowpea breeding program: firstly, the breeding program changed the way it prioritizes traits to include ones that reflect the needs of men, women and the youth in the cowpea value chain. Secondly, our breeding objectives are closely aligned to gender differences in the target population of farmers and other users, by incorporating key priority traits that address the needs of both men and women, including the youth. That is to say, product targets and specific product profiles are more gender sensitive. Since the breeding work is ongoing, the expectation is that the development of improved varieties resulting from this gender sensitive process will translate into higher adoption levels of these varieties (compared with previous releases), which might have ripple effects on food, nutrition and income security in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Bangladesh, farmers adapt to changing conditions through the adoption of improved varieties containing new or combined traits. The diverse varietal adoption decisions among farmers stem from gender-based differences in trait preferences. This review synthesizes existing knowledge to assess the nature, extent, and causes of gendered disparities in rice varietal trait preferences among farmers and consumers in Bangladesh. To enhance the data-driven nature of this review, we not only scrutinized secondary articles (45 documents) and databases but also incorporated and analyzed primary data on varietal adoption and trait preferences. The analysis revealed a pronounced need for rice breeding programs in Bangladesh to integrate both market and climate-smart traits, aligning with gender-specific needs in developing optimal rice product profiles. Analysis of primary data unveiled substantial variations in women and men farmers’ varietal trait preferences, influenced by factors like income, access to farming information, household size, land size, and decision-making. Consequently, addressing gender-differentiated trait preferences in the development of improved rice varieties is crucial to curtail farmers’ varietal adoption lag in Bangladesh. The findings underscore the necessity of systematic identification and integration of gender-differentiated varietal trait preferences into rice breeding programs. Failure to account for such preferences may disadvantage the gender-responsiveness of developed varieties and limit the anticipated impact. Therefore, understanding the biophysical, social, and cultural dynamics of diverse farmer groups from a gender perspective is imperative for achieving gender-responsive rice variety development in the context of Bangladesh. This process involves identifying key gender concerns for integration into rice breeding programs, ensuring a comprehensive approach to sustainable agriculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Farmers have suicide rates much higher than the general population, with elevated mental health symptoms and high stress levels. Farmers are a hard-to-reach population due to occupational demands and a culture where conversations about mental health are often stigmatizing. This study explored ways to tailor suicide prevention strategies to unique characteristics of farmers by speaking with groups close to farmers who were open to discussing stress and suicide prevention: women married to farmers and agricultural Extension agents. Methods: Focus groups with women married to farmers (N=29) and interviews with agricultural agents from the university's local Cooperative Extension offices (N=13) from rural Georgia counties explored effective ways outreach and education about suicide prevention, mental health, and coping could be provided to farmers. Using a thematic analysis approach, qualitative coding was completed by two researchers (Cohens kappa=0.86), with initial codes collapsed into common themes. Results: Four themes were identified: 1) Barriers due to the nature of farming, including time demands of farming and cultural stigma in help-seeking; 2) Acceptable messaging, including framing conversations as part of general health; 3) Make information accessible by making it brief, clear, and omnipresent through multiple media; and 4) Elements of effective information and education, including emphasizing "you're not alone" and connection, how to access supports and crisis services, educating people close to farmers, and motivating farmers by emphasizing that they could help another farmer with the information. Conclusion: Due to farmers' stoic identities and reluctance to admit mental health struggles, speaking with those close to farmers may help us better understand what is needed to tailor farmer suicide prevention strategies. The insights shared by participants suggest that culturally responsive outreach and education strategies, strengthening relationships through peer support, and gatekeeper training with specific trusted others are important ways to tailor suicide prevention strategies for this hard-to-reach group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]