This bibliography is a publication of the Joint Research Project which was executed under the Academic Exchange Programme between the Agricultural Engineering Service of FAO and the Department of Gender Studies in Agriculture of the Wageningen Agricultural University.
Whilst the flow of publications on women and agriculture is substantial, the attention for the gender aspects of agricultural equipment, tools, animal draught power and engineering technology has been scanty. The need to search existing databases on such literature was felt, both by FAO and WAU. For technicians who are aware of gender relations in their discipline it is often not easy to choose a strategy in research or design which is beneficial for women farmers. On the other hand social gender scientists regularly have little insight in technical and ergonomic demands on agricultural equipment. For both groups this bibliography may be of use.
The following literature databases were searched systematically: AGRALIN, Agrarian Literature Information System of the Netherlands, the information system of the Jan Kopshuis Labrary of the Wageningen Agricultural University and PUDOC/DLO in the Netherlands. The system is connected to about eighty libraries and documentation services in the Netherlands. Five AGRALIN databases were searched:
1. CLC, the Central Agricultural Catalogue, which contains books, reports and theses.
2. Database Gender Studies in Agriculture, the database which contains titles of articles from scientific journals and chapters of books which are available in one of the WAU and PUBOC/DLO libraries. About 240 agricultural and social science journals are used when selecting titles for the database.
3. Database for Home Economics and Consumers Sciences, articles from relevant journals.
4. Database of LBW (Land, Soil and Water) which contains articles of the Staring Building Library.
5. FAO database, which contains books and reports which have been published by FAO.
For the last database english keywords and words from the title have been used for the selection of relevant literature, whilst the other four databases were searched with UDC numbers, Agralin classification terms and clutch title words. All AGRALIN databases are kept up to date.
On Line literature search was conducted from the following databases:
- C.A.B. International Information Services (Commonwealth Agricultural Bureaux International), the internationally leading agricultural database. Records were included from 1991 onwards.
- AGRIS/FAO, International information system for the agricultural sciences and technology, with records from 1985 onwards.
- AGRICOLA, Bibliography of agriculture I National Agricultural Library, the national depot of the USA was also searched from 1985 till present.
For all three databases keywords from the titles were used as entrance.
The following databases on CD-ROM were searched:
- SOCIOFILE, Sociological Abstracts Inc. from 1985 till present.
- C.A.B. Intemational Information Services from 1988 till 1995
- TROPAG/RURAL, abstracts on tropical agriculture and on rural development in the tropics, from the Royal Tropical Institute (KIT) in Amsterdam. The CD-ROM contained abstracts from articles until September 1995.
All CD-Roms were searched with keywords from the titles.
In addition to computerized databases a number of printed bibliographies and other sources were used:
- C.A.B.lnternational, Rural Women, annotated bibliography no. RDA6 by Krystyna Kubisz, comprising about 1900 abstracts of documents relating to women and rural development in the Third World. The years 1984 -1991 are covered.
- Women and Development, an annotated bibliography, 1990 -1992, Royal Tropical Institute, Amsterdam.
- Gender and Development 1995 Intermediate Technology, a list of new and recent books from Intermediate Technology Publications.
- Proceedings of conferences on Animal Traction.
The records which are selected for this bibliography have been divided into five themes: the first one is gender, agricultural equipment and energy. This is the subject about which we would like to see much literature, because it is the most practical, nevertheless the total yield of records was disappointing. A separate chapter lists articles on animal draught power which pay attention to gender aspects. Post harvest technology is covered in chapter 4. Some of the entrees could have been included in the chapters 2 or 5, still it was preferred to give the subject a clearly defined space. The following theme deals with gender and agricultural technology. Some of the entrees are related to agricultural engineering; others more to agronomy and some have a clear holistic or system approach. Articles of the last type could be included in either chapter. The literature in this chapter is of a different level than that of the previous three chapters, which means that the material aspects of agricultural practices don't always get attention. The last theme (chapter 6) is more general and describes the division of labour in agriculture. Of that subject many more records could have been included, but those with most practical relevance on the lowest level and localized case studies had our priority.
Within the chapters the records have been entered in a chronological order, to begin with the most recent literature.
Articles on irrigation have not been included, because gender bibliographies have been published recently1. Also pest control and crop protection is left out of this bibliography. Most articles on the subject don't deal directly with implements for spraying etc. Recently a reader on the subject has been published, in which a list of literature in included2. Even though in both fields of study, irrigation and crop protection, the engineering factors are substantial, and the gender aspects are important, inclusion in this bibliography would mean a loss of focus, which would make it less functional.
1 E.g. Verkruijsse, B.; Jordans, E.H.; Webbink, J.F.; Zwarteveen, M.Z.; Koppen, B.C.M.van; Annotated Bibliography: gender and irrigation ans soil and water conservation, Department of Irrigation-and Soil and Water Conservation; Department of Gender Studies in Agriculture; Wageningen Agricultural University, 1992
2 Gender and crop protection; Reader prepared for the workshop "Gender Issues and Crop Protection", held at: XIII International Plant Protection Congress, The Hague, the Netherlands, July 2-7, 1995.
The used english key words are included in this bibliography (chapter 7). They don't always comply with the keywords found in the entrees, because all databases use their own systems and different key words. In the end an alphabetic list of authors is included for reference.
This bibliography can be used in combination with the paper on the corresponding subject, including case studies on Senegal and Zimbabwe by Maria Smetsers and Joke Muylwijk, written for the same academic exchange programme.
