Empowering women through farmer field schools

Despite rural women’s labor participation in agriculture, they continue to be marginalized through disparities in access to and control over resources, including technical production knowledge. Intrahousehold gender-stereotyped roles restrict women’s decision-making capacity and burden women with the bulk of caretaking responsibilities. One recent approach to shifting norms of gender inequities is through the integration of gender-focused curriculum with agricultural training, such as Farmer Field Schools. Beginning in the late 1980‘s, Farmer Field Schools were implemented as a form of agricultural extension that focused on collective learning rather than using a top-down approach. The agroecological approach to smallholder agriculture production provided technical training through experiential and community education. This type of training methodology provides opportunity for rich discussion of diverse topics, including gender norms and women’s empowerment. Beyond Farmer Field schools, high-level participatory methods can integrate gender content and have transformative results in terms of both gender relations and increased agricultural production.