Source: Food Sovereignty, Mindanao's case
Also accessible thru: Food Sovereignty, A feminist struggle?
The starting point of this study is a paradox : among social, institutional and political actors, peasant and family farming are gradually becoming established as legitimate and credible alternatives to an agro-productivist model that has ’run out of steam’. [1] They address both environmental and food-related challenges, are sustainable and successful in agro-economic terms, contribute to social change and operate on a human scale. This is one side of the coin.
The other side of the coin shows a darker reality : the ‘good results’ and ‘good practices’ of this type of agriculture are adversely affected by the operating logic and power relations within farming families (between sexes and between generations), the types of social determinism that prevail in communities and society.
Multiple experiences on several continents provide evidence of a positive correlation between agroecology and women empowerment. Women’s status and autonomy can be boosted, but one does not automatically lead to the other. The transition to more sustainable means of agricultural production alone is not sufficient to guarantee improvements in gender equality.
Food sovereignty goals to which agroecology contributes and goals related to women empowerment overlap, but are thus not identical. The first issues that spring to mind when considering the struggle for food sovereignty are related to agriculture. But this area of activity and the rural communities most involved remain marked by macho culture and male domination in the North as well as the South, with variations according to regions, but also according to social, religious or ethnic background. Inequalities and overexploitation of labor (mostly unpaid) are factors that generally do not change.
However, an approach based on food sovereignty is not limited to agriculture alone. It has a far broader scope and greater potential to achieve emancipation. Food sovereignty is a key element in the fight for social justice, and part of a radical movement to change the neoliberal development model characterized by inequality in social and economic relations. Food sovereignty, by tackling several exploitative systems, therefore also seeks to bridge the gap separating men and women, rich and poor, North and South.
Food sovereignty is a social struggle, but must also become a feminist struggle. Promoting food sovereignty can advance women’s rights and call into question the entrenched nature of the asymmetric division of labor based on gender, but only if organizers and actors involved in this movement open their eyes and take on board feminist analyses and practices.
The purpose of the study we are proposing is thus to question, in a given context and with specific actors supporting food sovereignty, how and under what conditions a transition to sustainable production methods can contribute to women’s emancipation. What are the benefits, but also the risks of such a change for women ?
Read the full paper here: Food Sovereignty: A feminist struggle?
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