Is the Feminization of Agriculture a Myth? A Reflection of SDGs 5 Gender Equality in Agriculture Context

Is the Feminization of Agriculture a Myth? A Reflection of SDGs 5 Gender Equality in Agriculture Context

Reni Juwitasari
Researcher
Disaster Resilience and Environmental Sustainability (DRES) Program,
Asian Research Center for International Development (ARCID)
School of Social Innovation, Mae Fah Luang University

Introduction

Empowering women with access to resources, equitable opportunities, and complete autonomy is vital for sustainable development achievement (UNPFA, 1994; UNESCAP, n.d.). Since the importance of development performance framework was established in the 1970s by UNDP and the World Bank, a number of campaigns and initiatives to promote gender equality have been launched, culminating in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs 2000-2015) and the successor Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs 2015-2030), specifically SDG Priority 5 (Agarwal, 2018).

As gender equality has been reinforced under the international agenda, in contrast, it remains unsuccessful attained, especially for women in the third world. According to UNESCAP (n.d.), women throughout Asia and the Pacific continue to be subjected to discriminatory legislation, cultural and social restrictions, and security risks that abuse their rights and potential. In this context, women have failed to get rights to property, land and natural resources, which affects most women who engage in agriculture (Srivastava, 2011).

Approximately 3.1 billion people, or 45% of the global population, live in rural areas (Gracia, 2003). Rural areas with half of the world's habitable land used for agriculture, where social and economic forces rely on agriculture, generate an important role of women in managing agricultural livelihoods and complex households (FAO, 2011; Ritchie & Roser, 2019). In terms of managing livelihoods, women farmers are recognized as having rich experiences in cropping pattern irrigation, pest control and soil management practices and preserving traditional ecological knowledge, while, in the case of a complex household, women play a central role in food security, such as household food managers, food producers and consumers (Dave, 2014; Agarwal, 2018). Nonetheless, the women engaged in agriculture are still unrecognized and unnoticed.

As feminization grows in agriculture, this article elucidates how far the progress and the SDGs 5 gender equality promotes women's rights in agriculture, including the significance of women's role in food security, or it becomes only a myth, neglecting the fact of agricultural feminization that is existing surrounding society, in the case of the Third World.

Women, Food Security and SDG 5 Gender Equality

Between 60 and 80 percent of women are responsible for food production worldwide (USAID, n.d.), which emphasizes rural women, to a great extent, on food reliance and access (SIDA, 2015). They play an essential role in the four pillars of food security; accessibility, availability, utilization, and stability (Garcia, 2003). For instance, they involve in agricultural operations, such as livestock, crops, e.g., vegetable plants and legumes, and fish farming. Moreover, they allocate food supply, adequate protein, energy and nutrition at the household level (Asadullah & Kambhampati, 2021), including the broader role in the economic field to commercialize cash crops (SIDA, 2015). 

As it has been said that women were the pioneers who domesticated crop plants and established agriculture as a means to satisfy human hunger, women at the community level engage in a variety of activities that support managing natural resources and agricultural development, such as water and soil conservation, reforesting, and harvest domestication (Dave, 2014). In addition, women frequently have unique perspectives and knowledge of the importance of local biodiversity for producing adapted and better cultivars (SIDA, 2015). It can be reflected by the fundamental characteristics of women for caretakers, the idea of conception, birth, and renewal (Deda & Rubian, 2004; SIDA, 2015). The manners become a mode of natural resource use for constructing, growing, breeding, feeding, and healing, as well as knowledge development and transfer, to preserve biodiversity and increase livelihood security (Deda & Rubian, 2004). As a result, women's nurture in agriculture has been vitally positioned for food security.

As in the interlinkage of women's role in food security, gender equality is a key element to achieving the 17 SDGs, interlinking with other agendas of "zero hunger," "zero poverty," and well-being (Asadullah & Kambhampati, 2021). Specifically, in SDG 5 on gender equality, women in agriculture are expected to have value-added productive agricultural resource participation, have full authority of decision-making and empowerment, including access to training and education, increase the recognition of unpaid care and domestic work, especially for their role in smallholder agriculture, promote decent work and equally paid, and agricultural land ownership (IISD, 2019). Aligning with SDG 5, article 14 of the «The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women» specifically highlights States' obligations to eliminate discrimination against women in rural areas (Garcia, 2003). To underpin this role, the international agenda of SDGs are expected to advocate and offer the guide of women's empowerment over land and property, participation and recognition.

Agricultural Feminisation in the Third World and Its Reality

Agriculture is a vital component of the world economy, with women comprising 43% of the global agricultural labor force and more than two-thirds of Asian women contributing to food production (FAO, 2021; Elneel, 2020). For instance, the growing number of rural women in agriculture in China peaked in the 1990s (GFAGE, 2016). In Asia, between 1980 and 2010, women's share of the economically active population in agriculture increased by 46 percent, and it will continue to be 60 percent by 2050 (FAO, 2011; ADB, 2015). Consequently, it is acknowledged as "feminization."

The word "feminization of agriculture" is frequently acknowledged in a positive manner by economists globally; for instance, only in South Asia between 60 percent and 98 percent of women actively increasing economic development (Assadullah & Kambhampati, 2021), so the feminization of agriculture has been drawn in policy attention (Kelkar, 2010). Pattanaik et al. (2017) mentioned that at least two interpretations of the agricultural feminization concept exist. The first concept, in a limited sense, is related to an increase in the number or amount of women proportion in agriculture, shortly agriculture being feminized or 'female-dominated.' In addition, the second concept, as a broader concept, attaches to the term of enactment and control of social processes of agriculture, briefly, feminization-being played in agriculture or 'feminist-dominated.' Furthermore, it empowers women to make decisions, giving full authority and power for land, property, asset rights and adequate welfare (GFAGE, 2016). Consequently, the introduction of the phrase 'feminization of agriculture' has contributed to a greater understanding of the significance of women in international agricultural research projects and rural land reform practice (Leder, 2022).

The hypothesis of feminization in agriculture appeared from flourishing industry and manufacturing development. Due to migration, women have shifted the men's occupations and replaced men's agricultural activity (Tamang et al., 2014). Since then, women's participation in agriculture has been relatively strong, expected to contribute to the social and economic impacts. In reality, despite the commitment to SDG 5 Gender equality agenda and article 14 of The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women mentioned above, the feminization of agriculture has not received sufficient attention for its implementation (Kelkar, 2010; Garcia, 2003). Agarwal, in 2018, even argued that SDG 5 lacks clarification regarding women's access to and management of natural resources. She pointed out that target five on accessing farmland, forest and fisheries, loan credit, and marketplace for gender equality has no significant influence on women in managing their own agriculture, owing to limited manifestation in the government policy and regulation. Furthermore, the most prevalent critique on SDGs by feminists is not in parallel transformation with social, economic and power relations structure (CGSHR, 2017). 

The intersectionality and relationality have taken into account these addressed women farmer's constraints (Leder, 2022). Women's biological aspect is seen as incapability. Cultural biases and the patriarchal system have been inherited significantly in society which is prevailing discrimination against, sexually objectified, oppressed and undervalued (Mokati et al., 2022). Gender in social construction is strongly related to unbeneficial women's rights. Power imbalance and male-dominated in the economic and political sphere lead to the adverse impacts of women's presence in rural agricultural development (Massey, 2021). Women live in the status quo of poverty, incapable of agricultural skills, low levels of education and literacy, and access to loans, land rights and property (Care, 2020). Additionally, in The case of labor in agriculture, such as the level of commercialization of wage labor, gendered labor created by the male elite can widely influence the wage gap and equal opportunity to be in a vital position on the managerial board (Kawarazuka et al., 2022).

Although a Second World country, China, since the 1990s growing agricultural feminization, women's participation in making decisions has not improved in parallel (GFAGE, 2016). Meanwhile, in Asia and Africa, by taking a role in agriculture, women have perceived the cultivated gender roles in domestic affairs as a double burden, affecting agriculture production less from 20 to 30 percent compared to a male farmer in the scale of the manufacturing sector (Kauntia, 2022). As a result, rural women are not gainfully employed, taken as underperforming compared to men, who influence gaining lower salaries than men (Garcia, 2003). Moreover, women in smallholder farming are likely recognized as unpaid laborers (Kawarazuka et al., 2022).

The achievement of gender equality in midst of agricultural feminization is merely a utopia of the international agenda. It becomes a paradox when women have largely played this role, not aligned with rights to access assets, property and land as their male counterparts (Massey, 2021; Agarwal, 2018). Having analyzed this issue, is it solely the feminization of agriculture put in the number? Moreover, is agricultural feminization empowerment a myth?

Conclusion

In conclusion, the blooming of women in agriculture started in the 1970s, when the United Nations and the World Bank created development performance tool evaluations. Parallel to this development, rural women in the third world have assumed a prominent part in agricultural operations owing to the out-migration of their male husbands and relatives into the industrial sector. This phenomenon is referred to as the "feminization of agriculture." Food self-sufficiency, accessibility, and security rely heavily on women. They play a significant role as food producers, suppliers, nutritionists, consumers, and home food managers. Therefore, the feminization of agriculture has been seen favorably. In addition, the SDG 5 goal of gender equality cultivates the feminization of agriculture as part of women's empowerment initiatives, which include access to equal authority, land rights, education, remuneration, participation in decision-making, and recognition.

Several feminist researchers said that the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) have yet to give a revolutionary solution to the economic and social framework bequeathed by patriarchal societies. In contrast, SDG 5 continues to restrict access to these fundamental human rights. Therefore, the segregated gender intersectionality and relationality have an effect on the power imbalance and cultural restrictions that make taking on a role in agriculture more of a burden than a value-add. This essay concludes that gender equality in the feminization of agriculture is a myth as long as the social structure is in the status quo.

Thanks to Dr. Yuki Miyake, the Head of the Disaster Resilience and Environmental Sustainability (DRES) Program, Asian Research Center for International Development, School of Social Innovation, Mae Fah Luang University, for supervising this article.

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