Gender and agro-ecology: implications for gender relations

Abstract

This paper presents the results of the study that in the places where the Agrarian Reform in Brazil takes place. We draw attention to those women who chose agro-ecology as the organizing technological model to make a productive and cultural contribution to the territory they live in. The chosen model is contrasted to the farming model that favors monoculture and the use of toxic products in agriculture supported by the “Green Revolution” that recognizes men as the subject of production and of farming property. The new model gives a new perspective to the production spaces and country life. Agro-ecology becomes a dialogue of knowledge where the cultural and social heritage accumulated by countrymen and women is the main alternative for the hegemonic model. The potentialities that agro-ecology gives to alter the hierarchical structures that culture has imposed for gender relations are highlighted in the study. Multi-culture, multi-functionality, exchange with specialists, participation in research nets and fairs, and the creation of production groups, among other factors, involve a democratization of the power spaces and quotas, as well as encouraging the development of capacities and of economic and political power for women, now as the main actors of their own destiny. The meaning of this approach to a new model for the ones who apply it is also included in the study. The methodology applied is supported by multiple case studies and the study of chosen social groups.