Revathi Balakrishnan
Regional Rural Sociologist and Women in Development Officer
FAO Regional Office for Asia and The Pacific
Abstract
As defined by FAO, the three aspects of food security are availability, access, and stability. In all three dimensions, at the micro level, food security concerns are associated with the capacities of persons and households to produce, buy, and use food of the right quantity and quality at various phases of the life cycle and seasons. Within the groups of individuals and households, it is important to differentiate the relative status and roles of women and men in achieving desired food security. These households and communities organise production and resource management around gender division of labor and responsibilities. An important safety net for marginal and small farmer households could be supporting agro-biodiversity as a risk reduction formula in food production. Rural women play a key role in such agro-biodiversity based food production systems. The current global view is that rural men and women are the managers of biodiversity and hold in-depth knowledge of local plants and are thus community custodians of plant genetic resources. Thus, an equitable partnership with these grassroots level plant genetic resource managers should be sought, guided by a sound understanding of their wealth of knowledge and dependency on biodiversity. Placed in the framework of FAO's mission of Food for All, an environment rich in biodiversity could advance the ability of farm households to increase food production, or improve the access to food directly or through provision of livelihood options to obtain an income to access food.
Biodiversity and food security interactions can be viewed incorporating a gender perspective under three categories with implications for small farm households. These are i) Farm crop diversity and household food security; ii) Home garden diversity and household food security; and iii) Forest resource biodiversity and households' livelihood and food security. In all three categories, studies relevant to the SAARC region illustrate the role of men and women in biodiversity management. The motivating factors for preserving native plants differ between men and women. Men tend to be more interested in the market value of the species, while women may be more interested in their culinary and nutritional value. In areas where there is out-migration of men leading to the feminisation of agriculture, women tend to conserve a wide range of food and medicinal plants for ensuring household food and health security.
Management of plant biodiversity for food and agriculture thus includes a social dimension. Hence, the global agenda for biodiversity management has to be reviewed within the framework of socio-bioscience interfaces or simply, socio-economic dimensions of biodiversity management as they impact on sustainable food security. The socio-economic dimensions of biodiversity management at the farm household context include the dimensions of gender roles and gender-differentiated indigenous knowledge as inputs to agricultural production and utilisation of forest resources. Systematic documentation of gender roles in biodiversity management has to be pursued to overcome the existing paucity of information. Such research-based information should support policy and programme formulations in the area of conservation of plant genetic resources for agriculture.
Discussion
FAO Women in Development Technical Programme for gender and sustainable natural resource management includes within its purview, recognizes that biodiversity security means food security for most of the Asian nations. Country-based studies on gender dimensions of biodiversity management have given insights on the gender-based roles of men and women in agriculture, home gardens, and local resources management. In some countries, even children play a vital role in natural resource management.
FAO has developed Socio-Economic And Gender Analysis (SEAGA) training programmes and frameworks for gender analysis in various sectors. There is a need to develop a gender sensitive database on knowledge systems, which could be used to ensure intellectual property rights. In particular SEAGA sectoral guide for plant genetic resources could be use to researchers in regional member countries. It is currently being tested in African region.
There are varying depths of understanding among policy makers, governments and scientists about the value of women's work. For example, in Viet Nam, each Ministry has a focal committee on women through which the FAO can reach the local people. Each donor agency has its own agenda—IDRC has given more emphasis to livestock than to biodiversity in their studies. FAO is working on exchanging information with various donor agencies. FAO Link project funded by Norway helps to link the programmes in African countries and Asia could also be linked.
Ms. Sumi Krishna
M.S.Swaminathan Research Foundation, Chennai, India
Abstract
This paper is based on a review of case studies on the gender dimensions of biodiversity management in Bhutan, Nepal, Maldives, Sri Lanka, and India. It emphasises that biodiversity management and food security are human problems, which are of particular concern to women because of the gendered division of agricultural, domestic, craft, and other work. This gendered division, however, is very variable over space and time, proving that such differences are based on socio-cultural factors rather than on biological/ natural differences between women and men. Class, religion-caste, ethnicity and gender, besides age/stage in the life cycle, determine women's visibility, mobility, access to and control of resources, knowledge, and income.
The case studies reflect the male bias in formal biodiversity management, which uses women's knowledge, skills, and labour to increase programme efficiency, but tends to exclude them from participating in new information and technology. The paper discusses various obstacles to women's participation, the need for male support, and the gender-sensitivity of men and women professionals. Women field workers who are stepping across accepted gender stereotypes face many gender-specific problems—constraints imposed by society, the pressures of their own families, and sexual harassment by male colleagues. To move beyond the documentation of gender roles to an understanding of gender relations, the paper supports the trend towards multidisciplinary studies. It stresses the need to build upon village women's technical and managerial capacities, and to integrate gender interests in project planning and implementation. The common experience has been that the greatest resistance to participatory and gender approaches is at the senior level.
The paper argues that the gender dimensions of biodiversity management cannot be isolated from the substratum of gender relations between men and women. It points out that male domination of the family, public policy, and institutions obscures women's concerns and interests. The ‘culture of silence’ and the unwritten social laws that condition women to submit to discrimination need to be challenged. Management practices will have to encompass women's long-term needs for personal autonomy, decision-making power, access to and control of critical resources including land and their own labour. Clear strategies are required on how to draw out women's power, and guidelines are needed to develop equity and benefit-sharing mechanisms which specifically recognise women's rights. Programmes for biodiversity management and food security should involve both women and men, transforming gender relations rather than ignoring them.
Discussion
The commonalties and the differences in the approach and results of the studies on gender dimensions and bio-diversity management in the said countries were brought out. The case studies did not follow any single methodology. It was different not only for the different country studies and but also for the various regions of a country, for example, India. In a few cases, the focus was on biodiversity rather than on its management, while in others the authors seemed to take the view that all was well in ancient times and viewed development as a negative item in evolution. Some case studies gender division of labour for many of the biodiversity management activities of the communities.
There was discussion on the means to get women's involvement in local decision making and the necessary legislation. In India, there is a system of local governance by panchayats, where the representation of women is low; studies have shown that women are mere onlookers and the entire local governance is controlled by men. It was felt that gender sensitising of top management is also essential to get results at the ground level.
Studies on the Joint Forest Management systems have shown an increase in women labour, but whether this actually led to greater strategic powers to women is not established yet. Some agricultural interventions also have led to increased labour inputs from women.
Attitudinal changes in people are important to overcome initial resistance of local communities, and as such, a gender sensitive person, whether male or female, is more valuable in field studies.
Ms. Elizabeth Fajber
IDRC South-Asia Regional Office, New Delhi, India
Abstract
The International Development Research Centre seeks to enhance the equitable and sustainable use of biodiversity through support to research from the perspective of those who use, manage, and benefit from biodiversity. The ability of different social groups to access, control, and strategically use bio-diverse resources has significant implications for food, nutritional, and health security.
The aim of the Sustainable Use of Biodiversity (SUB) programme initiative at IDRC is to bring the scientific understanding of local perspectives and management of biodiversity into appropriate policy debates in two sectoral areas: options for food security in agricultural and aquatic biodiversity and options for sustainable livelihoods in the local sustainable use of natural products, especially medicinal plants.
The gender division of rights, responsibilities, work, and knowledge is taken as a point of departure to examine and explain the multiple roles of women and men as resource users/ managers. Employing research with gender as a key variable helps to clarify the indefinite boundaries of the household and the family, and the complex ways in which family, household, and community and ecosystem are linked.
Although researchers and policy makers are increasingly aware of the importance of gender issues, research is often ‘gender neutral’. That is, researchers employ units of ‘household’ or ‘community’ uncritically and do not deconstruct the heterogeneous power and gender relations among those units. Similarly, technologies and macro-policies are viewed as gender-neutral. It is critical to move to a deeper analysis, one which facilitates proactive action which informs and supports mechanisms for positive social change. For example, investigations are needed as to how processes of increasing commercialisation and economic growth impact women and men's access to use and control of plant genetic resources differently. How are women and men involved differently in the collection and production and distribution and consumption of these resources and derived products? Research which directly investigates these issues and increases understanding of the power/knowledge relations of men and women can help to develop gender sensitive interventions and policies and create a space for women to improve their position and bargaining power.
What approaches and tools can support the integration of gender into biodiversity research, development, and policies? IDRC has developed some tools for its research partners. Guidelines for Integrating Gender Analysis into Biodiversity Research relate some of the key concepts of gender and gender analysis. “Gender Resource Kit: Readings and Resources for Community-Based Natural Resource Management for Researchers” includes reading both of a theoretical and practical nature on integrating gender into research on natural resources. In addition, project-based workshops with aims of building gender research capacity to specific research teams directly applicable to their project are conducted. The liaison of research partners with resource people who have expertise in gender research is facilitated, as well as the development of an international database. Information about results, experience and methodologies is shared among research partners.
Discussion
The three introductory papers drew certain conclusions. The country case studies conducted under the auspices of FAO's Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific proved the worth of home gardens as tools of conservation and confirmed the feminisation of agriculture. Women carry out most of the work in subsistence agriculture. Men are migrating to the cities for remunerative employment, so more and more women are used as agricultural labour. The burden of work and lack of time lead women-managed farms to lose out on multiple food crops that they usually grow, endangering the food security of the family.
Affluence denies access to natural resources. Women manage and decide on cropping patterns in subsistence farms, while in large farmlands the male farmers decide on all farming activities. Thus, women are denied access and decision making powers as affluence increases in farming communities. Affluent farmers hire agricultural labour and the women of the family manage only the post-harvest activities.
Skills training in agriculture is usually given to men, yet women maintain most of the crops.
Plant genetic databases/inventories do not have gender differentiated information.
Case studies that deal with biodiversity management should also look into food cultures, which would explain most of the agricultural processes of the area.
Interaction between agricultural graduates and farmers should be increased. A suggestion would be to increase the on-farm work experience of agriculture students as has been tried out in the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University in Coimbatore, India.
