This volume explores agricultural commercialization from a gender equality and right to food perspective.
Agricultural commercialization, involving not only the shift to selling crops and buying inputs but also the commodification of land and labour, has always been controversial. Strategies for commercialization have often reinforced and exacerbated inequalities, been blind to gender differences and given rise to violations of the human rights to food, land, work and social security. While there is a body of evidence to trace these developments globally, impacts vary considerably in local contexts. This book systematically considers these dynamics in two countries, Cambodia and Ghana. Profoundly different in terms of their history and location, they provide the basis for fruitful comparisons because they both transitioned to democracy in the early 1990s, made agricultural development a priority, and adopted orthodox policies of commercialization to develop the sector. Chapters illustrate how commercialization processes are gendered, highlighting distinctive gender, ethnic and class dynamics in rural Ghana and Cambodia and the different outcomes these generate. They also show the ways in which food cultures are changing and the often-problematic impact of these changes on the safety and quality of food. Specific policies and legal norms are examined, with chapters addressing the development and implementation of frameworks on the right to food and land administration. Overall, the volume brings into relief multiple dimensions shaping the outcomes of processes of commercialization, including gender orders, food cultures, policy translation, national and sub-national policies, corporate investments and programmes, and formal and informal legal norms. In doing so, it offers insight not only on our case countries, but also provides proposals to advance rights-based research on food security.
This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of food security, agricultural development and economics, gender, human rights and sustainable development.
Author(s): Joanna Bourke Martignoni, Christophe Gironde, Christophe Golay, Elisabeth Prügl, Dzodzi Tsikata
Series: Earthscan Food and Agriculture
Publisher: Routledge/Earthscan
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 290
City: London
Cover
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
List of figures
List of tables
List of contributors
Acknowledgements
Agricultural commercialization, gender equality, and the right to food
SECTION I Commercialized livelihoods, gender, and food security
1 From food crop to food shop. Agricultural commercialization, food security, and gender relations in Cambodia
2 Gender, agricultural commercialization, and food security in Ghana
3 Emerging rural food markets in Kampong Thom (Cambodia): Right to food, gender, and shifting food cultures
4 Gender, changing food cultures, and food security in the context of agricultural commercialization in Ghana
SECTION II Gender(ed) policies for food security in a commercializing world
5 Gender mainstreaming in a hybrid state: Entanglements of patriarchy and political order in Cambodia’s food security sector
6 Minding the gap in agriculture and food security: Gender mainstreaming and women’s participation in policy processes in Ghana
7 Agricultural commercialization and gender mainstreaming in decentralized Ghana: The politics of business
SECTION III Rights to food, land, and gender equality
8 Feminist legal geographies of land titling, indebtedness, and resistance in rural Cambodia
9 Legal pluralism, gender justice, and right to food in agrarian Ghana
10 Social security in the extractive state: Gender, land inheritance, and agrarian change in Ratanakiri, Cambodia
11 Constitution, courts, right to food, and gender equality in Ghana
From the unequal harvests of commercialization to the right to food and gender equality: What roles for governments, agribusinesses, and rural communities?
Index
