Volume 3, Number 1
June 1997

Gender and Biodiversity

Responding to a request for information about gender and biodiversity, Patricia Howard-Borjas of Wageningen Agricultural University (WAU) in The Netherlands described her findings so far on the state of the literature on this subject. She noted four dimensions of the issue of particular interest to her: (1) the gender-specific use of and nature of knowledge about biodiversity; (2) gender relations and the management of plant genetic resources (on and off the farm); (3) dynamics of change in the above, for example, with the introduction of new biotechnologies, improved seeds, conservation efforts, and cultural and economic change; and (4) gender and intellectual property rights/farmers rights as well as the international politics of biodiversity conservation.

Howard-Borjas notes that so far she has found very little research or other documentation that directly addresses the above issues. Most of the available literature addresses only topics 1 and 2, and then often indirectly; scant literature exists on 3 and 4, and most of it has been written in the last few years. On issues 1 and 2 she found mostly partial or indirect information on the following: wild food, household food security, and nutrition; nontimber forest products and agroforestry literature dealing with the use of forest or boundary lands; anthropological research on hunting/gathering; participatory plant breeding; ITK; green revolution (high-yielding varieties) and gender; and gender and agriculture. Much of the literature that deals directly with the above issues relates research results based on surveys or qualitative research with "farmers" without ever addressing the sex of the farmers (the implicit assumption of the reader is that the farmers are male).

Thus there may be much more information out there that is actually dealing with female farmers but it is impossible to identify it.