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Women and the environment Draft

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Article body (Working on the farming and agriculture subsection)

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Farming and agriculture

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See also: Feminization of agriculture

In the majority of the world, women are responsible for farm work and related domestic food production.[1][2][3][4] An increasing number of women are taking over and expanding their involvement in agricultural tasks, but this has not changed the gender division of labor with regard to reproductive work.[4] Esther Boserup looked into the farming systems of men and women in Africa and found that "in many African tribes, nearly all the tasks connected with food production continue to be left to women".[5] Schultz et al. (2001), found that "90% of women in the developing world, where most of the planet's biological wealth is found, depend on their land for survival. Women head 30% of the households in developing countries, 80% of food production in sub-Saharan Africa is done by women, 60% in Asia and 50% in Latin America.[6] Even though women are largely responsible for the actual agricultural work performed, men generally own the land, therefore controlling women's labor upon the land.[7]

Africa

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Esther Boserup examined the farming systems of men and women in Africa and found that "in many African tribes, nearly all the tasks connected with food production continue to be left to women".[2] In Botswana, men typically have greater access to advanced technologies and plowing abilities.[7] Zambia also has a high percentage of women farmers yet they are not explicitly recognize and often neglected entirely.[7] Consistent lack of access to credit, mobility, technological advancements, and land ownership further complicate women's agricultural roles. A group of women in Kenya began farming trees way before climate change was prioritized because they had seen what happens to lands that are depleted of its nutrients and the adverse effects.[8]

Latin American and Caribbean

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In Peru, women often participate in food production and family farming yet they do not generally benefit directly from their labor.[7] Their work is not considered as valuable as men's. Women in the Caribbean have always been associated with agriculture and do have access to land ownership.[7] However, women still do not have the same access to technology as men and generally have smaller plots of land.[7]

The dependence on nature and the environment for survival is common among Third World women.[1] It has been argued by environmental feminists[7][2][9] that this dependence creates a deeply rooted connection between women and their surroundings. The dependency women have on natural resources, based on their responsibilities, creates a specific interest that may be different from the interests of men.[7] Jiggins et al. suggests that the views women have on nature are unique in that they connect the land to immediate survival and concern for future generations rather than simply looking at the land as a resource with monetary value.[3] With the development of newer technologies since the 1940s, there has been a shift to more non-farm activities, however, men more than women are the ones participating in the shift, leaving women behind.[5] It has been projected that the continuation of men shifting to urban livelihoods, more and more women will be depended on to maintain the household by farming.[2] Especially during the neoliberal policy regime in Latin America, with the increasing use of exports, women were ideal for their ‘gendered skills,’ they were paid less for their farming labor and not likely to organize, coining the term ‘feminization of responsibility.’[10] Issues such as climate change could have a greater impact on women because the land they farm will be negatively affected.[6]

Asia and Pacific Islands

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In the Asian and Pacific Island regions, 58% of women involved in the economy are found in the agriculture sector. This involves work in own-account farms, labor in small enterprises for processing fruits, vegetables and fish, paid and unpaid work on other peoples land, and collecting forest products.[11] Out of all the women working in this sector, 10–20% have been found to have tenure to the land they work on. Reasons for this number include economic and legal barriers. For example, in terms of loans women are found to get fewer and less loans to acquire land than men.[11]

One other factor that plays into women's land rights for agriculture is the cultural norms of the area. In the Asian and the Pacific women's societal roles have been defined by patriarchal norms of the larger global society, where men are viewed as breadwinners and women are viewed as caretakers. This can be expressed through the number of hours women spend doing unpaid care work per day. In developing countries in total, women spend 4 hours and 30 minutes of care work a day versus the 1 hour and 2 minutes that men spend.[11]

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As the main economic sector of Southeast Asia, agriculture includes over one quarter of Association of Southeast Asian States's (ASEAN) working women- this is a significant difference from OECD's 3.5% average.[12] Members of ASEAN have cited increased threats to the sector from more frequent natural disasters due to climate change with significant gendered impacts.[13] These events have different effects for each country and each region of Southeast Asia, but harms upon both gender equality and economic production through agriculture are common across the region.[14] The Dawei Special Economic Zone (SEZ) and deep seaport, located in a border region of Myanmar and Thailand, is an industrial development project with alleviated environmental regulations, among other relaxed rules, marketed for business investment.[15] Out of Myanmar, as for residents who are displaced from homes and their agriculture work due to the Dawei SEZ's development, new higher paying jobs, and usually land rights, are granted to men. Women, whose prior experiences have been agricultural, resort to informal, insecure, and smaller-scale farm labor.[16] In the Mekong River Delta Region of Vietnam, although women comprise about half of the labor involved in intensive rice production systems, they have the added responsibility of being the primary caretaker and securing food for their families. As climate change increasingly threatens agricultural systems, women in the Mekong Delta region face disproportionate risk to their livelihoods relative to men because of their dependency on the land for rice production combined with their role as domestic provider.[17] In 2008, in the Sambas district of West Kalimantan, Indonesia, women protested oil palm plantation expansion and the land acquisitions associated with it. Although men were usually the legal owners of the land in conflict in Sambas, women are the main managers of the land and domestic care, meaning they would be disproportionately impacted by water pollution, land grabs and home loss, crop loss, and lack of other job opportunities, all due to increased palm production.[18]

References

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  1. ^ a b Agarwal, B. (Spring 1992). "The gender and environment debate: lessons from India". Feminist Studies. 18 (1): 119–158. doi:10.2307/3178217. JSTOR 3178217.
  2. ^ a b c d Agarwal, B. (1998). "Disinherited peasants, disadvantaged workers: a gender perspective on land and livelihood". Economic and Political Weekly. 33 (13 (Mar. 26 – Apr. 3, 1998)): A2–A14. JSTOR 4406578.
  3. ^ a b Jiggins, J. (2004). Changing the boundaries: Women-centered perspectives on population & the environment. Covelo, Ca: Island Press.
  4. ^ a b Lastarria-Cornhiel, S. (2006). Feminization of Agriculture: Trends and Driving Forces. Santiago: RIMISP.
  5. ^ a b Boserup, E. (1970). Woman's Role in Economic Development. Male and female farming systems (15–65).
  6. ^ a b Schultz, Irmgard; et al. (2001). "Research on Gender, the Environment and Sustainable Development". Institut für Sozial-ökologische.
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h Tiondi, T. (2001). Women, environment and development: Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America (Theses and Dissertations). Paper 1549.
  8. ^ Steady, Filomina Chioma (2014). "Women, Climate Change, and Liberation in Africa". Race, Gender & Class. 21: 312–333. ProQuest 1690372156.
  9. ^ }Nightingale, A. (2006). "The nature of gender: work, gender, and environment" (PDF). Environment and Planning D: Society and Space. 24 (2): 165–185. doi:10.1068/d01k. hdl:1842/1451. S2CID 44052896.
  10. ^ 'Beneria'; 'Berik'; 'Floro', 'Lourdes'; 'Gunseli'; 'Maria' (2016). Gender, Development and Globalization: Economics as if All People Mattered. New York: Taylor & Francis Group. p. 116.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  11. ^ a b c United Nations, Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (2017). Gender, the Environment and Sustainable Development in Asia and the Pacific. United Nations ESCAP.
  12. ^ OECD; ASEAN Secretariat (2021). Strengthening Women’s Entrepreneurship in Agriculture in ASEAN Countries. Jakarta: OECD Publishing. p. 14.
  13. ^ ASEAN; UN Women (2021). "ASEAN Gender Outlook". UN Women Data Hub. Retrieved 2022-03-09.
  14. ^ Paris, Thelma R.; Rola-Rubzen, Maria Fay (2018-12-01). "Gender Dimension of Climate Change Research for Agriculture in Southeast Asia: An Introduction". In Paris, Thelma R.; Rola-Rubzen, Maria Fay (eds.). Gender dimension of climate change research in agriculture: Case studies in Southeast Asia. Wageningen, the Netherlands: CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security. pp. 1–10.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
  15. ^ Maung, Pyae Phyo; Wells, Tamas (2018-09-20). "ADVOCACY ORGANIZATIONS AND SPECIAL ECONOMIC ZONES IN MYANMAR". In Chambers, Justine; McCarthy, Gerard; Farrelly, Nicholas; Win, Chit (eds.). Myanmar Transformed?: People, Places and Politics. Singapore: ISEAS Publishing. pp. 161–179. doi:10.1355/9789814818551. ISBN 978-981-4818-55-1.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
  16. ^ Resurrección, Bernadette P.; Nguyen, Ha (2017-11-06), McGregor, Andrew (ed.), "A feminist political ecology prism on development and change in Southeast Asia", Routledge Handbook of Southeast Asian Development (1 ed.), New York : Routledge, 2018.: Routledge, pp. 261–270, doi:10.4324/9781315726106-23, ISBN 978-1-315-72610-6, retrieved 2022-03-15{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
  17. ^ Mckinley, Justin; Adaro, Catharine; Rutsaert, Pieter; O. Pede, Valerien; Ole Sander, Bjoern (2019). "Gendered Perceptions, Impacts, and Coping Strategies in Response to Climate Change: Evidence from Mekong Delta, Vietnam". In Paris, Thelma (ed.). Gender Dimension of Climate Change Research in Agriculture Case Studies in Southeast Asia. Republic of the Philippines: SEARCA and CCAFS. pp. 35–50. ISBN 978-971-560-270-9.
  18. ^ Morgan, Miranda (2017-11-02). "Women, gender and protest: contesting oil palm plantation expansion in Indonesia". The Journal of Peasant Studies. 44 (6): 1177–1196. doi:10.1080/03066150.2017.1300579. ISSN 0306-6150.
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