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When applied to agriculture, systems analysis is based on the assumption that the farmer's unit is a productive system. In this context, gender analysis, examines the roles, activities, responsibilities, opportunities and constraints of each member of the community under review, and attempts to achieve greater equality between women and men within their spheres of interaction.

Although the research areas of gender and farming systems analysis intersect at various points, each has its own scope. While gender analysis takes into consideration economic production, reproduction and community participation, farming systems analysis tends to focus on the technical and socio-economic aspects of agricultural production. A conceptual framework, designed to combine both approaches, would therefore offer a better opportunity for grasping the complex and heterogeneous reality of pleasant economies.

The purpose of this study is to propose a conceptual and methodological framework that integrates a gender perspective into the analysis of farming systems. The proposal is based on the review of the conceptual frameworks of systems and gender analysis and the analysis of the experiences of the Nicaraguan project "Strengthening the Capacity of Women in the Management of Small-scale Farm Production Units" (GCP/NIC/020/NOR).


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