A new book co-edited by a Cornell faculty and student highlights the distortion of gender research in agricultural development and calls for transformative changes to the power dynamics and political systems that harm women and worsen hunger in the developing world.
“Gender in agriculture can become a buzzword, just like sustainability has become a buzzword, masking that very little is actually changing for women,” said Hale Ann Tufan, associate professor in the School of Integrative Plant Science’s Plant Breeding and Genetics Section and director of the Equitable Agricultural Research (EQUAL) Lab. “When we do this kind of research, are we saying, ‘We care about women’ – box checked – or are we really challenging the systems that create and sustain gender inequalities in the first place?”
Tufan is co-editor of “Gender, Power and Politics in Agriculture,” an open access collection published by Springer this fall. Other co-editors are: Hugo Campos and Vivian Polar, deputy director general for science and innovation and Social and nutritional science lead, respectively at the International Potato Center in Lima, Peru; Monifa Morgan-Bell ‘25, a research and administrative assistant in the EQUAL lab and undergraduate student majoring in global development; and Jemimah Njuki, chief of the Economic Empowerment section at UN Women. The book explores largely neglected topics such as masculinities, feminist research practice in agriculture, intersectionality and critical analysis of tools that are fundamental to shifting entrenched power dynamics of gender research in agriculture.
International organizations have increasingly focused on the importance of women farmers in combating hunger in the developing world, and of the challenges women face in trying to fulfill that responsibility. In many countries, women face discriminatory laws or cultural practices that limit their access to land, livestock and credit. The World Bank, echoing many organizations, has argued that millions of people could be lifted out of hunger “if women farmers had the same rights and resources as their male counterparts, and were empowered to contribute fully to the food system.”
“Gender in agriculture can become a buzzword, just like sustainability has become a buzzword, masking that very little is actually changing for women." - Hale Ann Tufan
In “Gender, Power and Politics in Agriculture,” the authors challenge these narratives that describe women in one of two extremes: victims or heroines.
“Framing women as victims robs them of any agency, and sets up a dynamic in which outside organizations should swoop in with all the answers,” Tufan said. “Framing them as heroes is equally problematic because it puts everything on their shoulders – they’re now responsible for saving the whole world, as well as caring for it.”
“The future of agriculture depends on transformative research,” said Morgan-Bell. “Women must be seen as active agents—helping to design, test, and apply solutions to the challenges they face, not just as passive recipients of solutions imposed by others.”
The authors argue instead for equal, participatory, transformative strategies to empower women farmers, and bridging the gap between theory and practice of gender research to create pathways for learning, bringing forth a change in how gender relations in agriculture are researched, practiced and taught.
“We know that gender inequalities in agriculture exist; we need to move from diagnosing problems to fixing them,” Tufan said. “At the very foundation of all these inequalities are power imbalances and that’s a much harder conversation to have, but it’s the conversation we must have.”
