Female perspectives in agriculture: A framework for gender-transformative change in Austria, Switzerland and California

Abstract

In tackling climate change adaptation, the integration of feminist research is essential to ensure just, resilient and sustainable measures (McGregor 2010). Especially global agricultural contexts still are organized in patriarchal hierarchies, that deny women’s manifold proficiencies. Gender neutral and agricultural research have mostly ignored the capacity for climate change adaptation of female farmers (Hyuer et al. 2024). Research on Women’s empowerment in Agriculture is often associated with low income and lower-middle income countries that are generally described as ‘Global South’ (e.g. see Hillenbrand et al. 2024 or important work of CGIAR). When it comes to literature gender-agriculture nexus, European or North American countries are underrepresented in research. Therefore or aim is to develop a gender transformative framework for agriculture (GTFA) in said areas. Empirical evidence from three case studies showed specific factors, that facilitate or enable or impede gender transformative change.