Planning for a Resource-Constrained by Nidhi Tandon


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our years ago, sixty countries called for radical changes in world farming when they signed the report of the UN’s International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology


for Development (IAASTD). The IAASTD is the biggest study of its kind ever conducted intended to guide world agriculture development and food production in the coming decades. It reflects a growing consensus among the global scientific community that the old paradigm of industrial, energy-intensive and toxic agriculture is a concept of the past. The key message of the report is that small-scale farmers and organic, agro-ecological methods are the way forward to solve the current food crisis and meet the needs of local communities.


Numerous studies in the last three decades also make


the case for engaging women in sustainable development and food security. As climate change strikes with increasing frequency, ferocity and in different forms, we are witnessing patterns and evidence that show time and time again that there are important differences in the gendered roles that rural men and women assume in these situations. Appreciating and supporting these roles can be the deciding factor as to whether rural adaptation or mitigation is an efficient use or a waste of resources, and whether community responses are reactive or proactive, spontaneous or planned, sustainable or unsustainable. Yet most policy, trade and aid decisions that impact


rural women are made in a non-participatory, top- down, one-directional way. And in an effort to redress this, supplemental policies are often established – to compensate for structural gaps; almost as an after-thought - to make sure that women ‘benefit’ from these policies and


are accounted for. Some of the policies, instruments and tools targeting women include legal provisions, such as the right to vote or the right to own land; financial services including micro credit and rural cash infrastructure; and practical training such as marketing, processing and small business training. These are important and valuable services if they in fact help to empower women. That is what is not yet evident. The evidence on the


ground suggests otherwise, that these `solutions` do not value or take into account women’s socio-economic productive roles, nor their cultural knowledge, intelligence or legacies. This raises important questions. Do these ‘solutions’ enable women to be actors in their own decisions, or do they further compromise women, placing them in greater debt, at deeper risk, and in positions of further weakness and silence? In anticipation of an intensification of struggles over natural resources, how are women empowered to protect their rights to take farming decisions that prioritize and first satisfy local food needs before cash crop production? When the stresses of climate change are then added to this struggle, how can women best be supported in planning for the future?


Key considerations for developing gender- sensitive food and agriculture policy instruments


While there are exceptional circumstances and contexts,


many elements and issues are common to farming women across different regions.


At the farm production level:


• As family members, women and men work together on the farm, with men generally taking on heavier work (including plowing and aspects of harvesting, and fishing at sea) and helping out with arduous work;


• Growing local food crops or landrace species for local diets is often left to women almost entirely, with minimal


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