Women in agroecology: inclusion, exclusion, and empowerment in Peru

ABSTRACT

In Peru, formal and informal organizations are key actors in promoting agroecological farming and related social goals but struggle to make significant changes for gender equality. In this study, I seek to understand how organizations conceptualize their role in gender equality throughout project design, implementation, and presentation. While the organizations designed their projects around organizational change, the implementation and presentation of their work focused on improving financial security and agricultural literacy for individual women rather than systemic conditions. Despite this, their efforts underscored the importance of women’s contributions and furthered the conversation about gender in Peruvian agriculture.

KEYWORDS:

• Agricultural development
• women farmers
• agroecology

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to my interview participants: Dr. Trent Blare, Ana Dorrego Carlón, and Milagros Cornejo Romero for their time and insights. Thank you to my advisors, Dr. Alexander Cromwell and Dr. Cynthia McClintock, for their attention, support, and feedback during the research and writing process.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethics approval

This research was approved by the Institutional Review Board of the George Washington University. The approval code is NCR213294.

Notes

1. See “Mujeres impulsan la agricultura ecológica en región Lima,” YouTube video, publicado por Frutos de la Tierra, 2019.

2. From the six program documents that included ratios.

3. See Intriago et al. (2017) for discussions on agroecology in Ecuador, Cockburn (2015) for Bolivia, and Hoinle (2020) for Colombia.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the George Washington University.