Are Agricultural Extension Programs Gender Sensitive? Cases from Cambodia

Abstract

Despite the recent increase in women farmers’ participation in agricultural extension projects in many parts of the world, it is still questionable whether active participation of women has been achieved. It is known that socio-cultural restrictions based on gender ideology often impede women farmers’ active participation. However, the interplay of gender relations and learning processes in extension activities has received little attention. Conceptualizing knowledge generation and dissemination as a social process, which reflects power relations between those involved in the process, allows us to view agricultural extension programs as sites of knowledge generation, where trainers and women and men farmers act and interact to shape the outcomes, exercising their agency to achieve the goals under specific socio-cultural conditions. Thus, the interaction in extension activities reflects, and at the same time reproduces or modifies, existing social relations and social structures. Drawing from two agricultural extension programs conducted in Cambodia in 2003, this article discusses how gender relations in a community affect extension activities. It concludes that, in order for women farmers to benefit from extension services on par with men farmers, an understanding of the workings of gender relations needs to be incorporated into its methodological deliberation.