Women, Land and Agriculture

This book considers women’s access to land and their role in food production in developing counties.

Globalization is excluding many small producers from the market, while it puts pressure on their governments to accept new technologies including genetically-modified crops. Some countries in the developing world have focused on agribusiness and, here too, women’s labor is essential.

Articles in this collection assert that women’s contribution to global agricultural production for food and for profit continues to be largely unacknowledged and undervalued, and that their ability to farm is constrained by lack of control of land, agricultural inputs, credit, and other essential resources. Thirty years after the first studies, women’s role in farming remains underestimated and misunderstood by development planners and policymakers.