Publication: Feminization of Agriculture : Trends and Driving Forces
Loading...
Files in English
3,716 downloads
Published
2008
ISSN
Date
2012-06-26
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
Women have broadened and deepened their involvement in agricultural production over the last few decades as they increasingly shoulder the responsibility for household survival and respond to economic opportunities in commercial agriculture. This paper will describe how women have increased their labor in two types of agricultural production--smallholder production and agro-export agriculture--and the economic and socio-cultural forces that are driving this trend.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Lastarria-Cornhiel, Susana. 2008. Feminization of Agriculture : Trends and Driving Forces. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/9104 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Global Agricultural Performance : Past Trends and Future Prospects(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2008)How the production of crops and livestock products has evolved in the different regions over the past 45 years is studied. The paper focuses on how the increased supply of and demand for agricultural commodities have affected terms of agricultural trade and the sources of agricultural growth. While significant progress has been made in raising food consumption per capita (in developing countries consumption increased from an average of 2100 kcal/person/day in 1970 to almost 2700 kcal/person/day, there are still more than 850 million undernourished people worldwide. A challenge for the future is to accelerate agricultural productivity in poor countries, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. It will also be important to satisfy increasing global demands for food, including that for animal products, sustain the natural resource base (soil, water, air and biodiversity), cope with water shortages, climate change and vulnerability, and navigate the potential conflict between devoting land to animal food and biofuels relative to direct human food.Publication Long-Term Farming and Rural Demographic Trends(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2008)Two general characteristics of rural populations are studied: farming operations at the global level and global rural demographic trends. Analysis of farming at the global level shows that agricultural land is expanding in Latin America and Africa, while expansion limits have been reached in South Asia. Roughly 90% of the world�s farms are small, defined as smaller than 2 hectares, especially in high density areas. While small farms tend to focus on staple crops, it is predicted that liberalization of agricultural markets resulting from future rounds of the WTO will not encourage these farms toward diversification. With respect to demographic trends, a superficial analysis of gender inequality shows that in rural Sub- Saharan Africa, inequality in terms of economic wellbeing and gender is more acute. AIDS is contributing to diminish femininity, not to intensify it and ageing is not really a concern for least developed countries. High dependency ratios brought about by larger population of children act to reduce rural wellbeing in the developing world. Therefore, the supply of labor is not at risk even in countries that are hard hit by AIDS. A cross-country migration analysis finds that only in Latin America is migration helping upward convergence of rural communities. Education is identified as the main asset that enables migration. Communities that are not endowed with sufficient levels of human capital are being left behind.Publication Bulk Export Commodities : Trends and Challenges(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2008)Cotton, coffee, cocoa, tea and tobacco markets and the marketing of these crops by producers and exporters in low income countries is the focus of this paper. The paper considers the organization of value chains for bulk export commodities and whether one can produce a helpful typology of the structure and operations of such chains. The question of the role of commodity exports in economic development is discussed as is the issue of produce quality within liberalized export commodity systems: how has liberalization affected quality and how can quality be improved within liberalized systems? Conclusion and overall observations about the organization and performance of liberalized export commodity market systems are provided.Publication Agricultural Biotechnology : Transgenics in Agriculture and their Implications for Developing Countries(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2008)Technological innovation in agriculture can bring enormous benefits to the poor. High-yielding varieties of staple food crops have improved agricultural productivity, raised incomes, and reduced food prices. Innovations in plant breeding research based on advances in genetics that make it possible to manipulate plant DNA. Referred to as 'biotechnology,' its use in agriculture is controversial, particularly with regard to the development and use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), also known as transgenics. Some believe that transgenics offer great potential for meeting the challenges of feeding the hungry and improving incomes while others are convinced that transgenics will unleash environmental catastrophes, worsen poverty and hunger, and place traditional agriculture and the global food supply at the mercy of corporate interests. This paper synthesizes the research on transgenics and discusses the implications of public sector support for it as a poverty reduction tool.Publication Feminization of Agriculture in China : Debunking the Myth and Measuring the Consequence of Women Participation in Agriculture(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2006-11)This paper helps build a clear picture of the role of women in China's agriculture and, if agricultural feminization has been occurring, its impact on labor use, productivity, and welfare. Using two data sets that track changes in labor use over time, the authors examine the evolution of off farm and on farm employment trends and analyze the role of men and women in the emergence of China's labor markets. They explore who is working on China's farms, and the effects of these decisions on labor use, productivity and welfare. The analysis debunks the myth that China's agriculture is becoming feminized. Even if women were taking over the farm, the consequences in China would be mostly positive from a labor supply, productivity and income point of view. There may be some lessons for the rest of the world on what policies and institutions help make women productive in a nation's agricultural sector. Policies that insure equal access to land, regulations that dictate open access to credit, and economic development strategies that encourage competitive and efficient markets all contribute to an environment in which women farmers can succeed.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Turn Down the Heat: Why a 4°C Warmer World Must Be Avoided(Washington, DC, 2012-11)A new report synthesizing the latest scientific knowledge on global warming warns we’re on a path to a 4 degree Celsius warmer world by the end of the century—with huge implications for humanity.Publication Digital Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13)All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.Publication Poverty and Shared Prosperity 2016(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2016-10-02)Poverty and Shared Prosperity 2016 is the first of an annual flagship report that will inform a global audience comprising development practitioners, policy makers, researchers, advocates, and citizens in general with the latest and most accurate estimates on trends in global poverty and shared prosperity. This edition will also document trends in inequality and identify recent country experiences that have been successful in reducing inequalities, provide key lessons from those experiences, and synthesize the rigorous evidence on public policies that can shift inequality in a way that bolsters poverty reduction and shared prosperity in a sustainable manner. Specifically, the report will address the following questions: • What is the latest evidence on the levels and evolution of extreme poverty and shared prosperity? • Which countries and regions have been more successful in terms of progress toward the twin goals and which are lagging behind? • What does the global context of lower economic growth mean for achieving the twin goals? • How can inequality reduction contribute to achieving the twin goals? • What does the evidence show concerning global and between- and within-country inequality trends? • Which interventions and countries have used the most innovative approaches to achieving the twin goals through reductions in inequality? The report will make four main contributions. First, it will present the most recent numbers on poverty, shared prosperity, and inequality. Second, it will stress the importance of inequality reduction in ending poverty and boosting shared prosperity by 2030 in a context of weaker growth. Third, it will highlight the diversity of within-country inequality reduction experiences and will synthesize experiences of successful countries and policies, addressing the roots of inequality without compromising economic growth. In doing so, the report will shatter some myths and sharpen our knowledge of what works in reducing inequalities. Finally, it will also advocate for the need to expand and improve data collection—for example, data availability, comparability, and quality—and rigorous evidence on inequality impacts in order to deliver high-quality poverty and shared prosperity monitoring.Publication Poverty, Prosperity, and Planet Report 2024(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-10-15)The Poverty, Prosperity, and Planet Report 2024 is the latest edition of the series formerly known as Poverty and Shared Prosperity. The report emphasizes that reducing poverty and increasing shared prosperity must be achieved in ways that do not come at unacceptably high costs to the environment. The current “polycrisis”—where the multiple crises of slow economic growth, increased fragility, climate risks, and heightened uncertainty have come together at the same time—makes national development strategies and international cooperation difficult. Offering the first post-Coronavirus (COVID)-19 pandemic assessment of global progress on this interlinked agenda, the report finds that global poverty reduction has resumed but at a pace slower than before the COVID-19 crisis. Nearly 700 million people worldwide live in extreme poverty with less than US$2.15 per person per day. Progress has essentially plateaued amid lower economic growth and the impacts of COVID-19 and other crises. Today, extreme poverty is concentrated mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa and fragile settings. At a higher standard more typical of upper-middle-income countries—US$6.85 per person per day—almost one-half of the world is living in poverty. The report also provides evidence that the number of countries that have high levels of income inequality has declined considerably during the past two decades, but the pace of improvements in shared prosperity has slowed, and that inequality remains high in Latin America and the Caribbean and Sub-Saharan Africa. Worldwide, people’s incomes today would need to increase fivefold on average to reach a minimum prosperity threshold of US$25 per person per day. Where there has been progress in poverty reduction and shared prosperity, there is evidence of an increasing ability of countries to manage natural hazards, but climate risks are significantly higher in the poorest settings. Nearly one in five people globally is at risk of experiencing welfare losses due to an extreme weather event from which they will struggle to recover. The interconnected issues of climate change and poverty call for a united and inclusive effort from the global community. Development cooperation stakeholders—from governments, nongovernmental organizations, and the private sector to communities and citizens acting locally in every corner of the globe—hold pivotal roles in promoting fair and sustainable transitions. By emphasizing strategies that yield multiple benefits and diligently monitoring and addressing trade-offs, we can strive toward a future that is prosperous, equitable, and resilient.Publication Trade Openness Is Now More Important Than Ever(World Bank, 2009-12-01)Protectionism constitutes a double threat. It can make recovery from the recession slower and reduce the growth potential of the international economy once recovery has taken hold.