In what ways are women leveraging traditional crop varieties or seed-saving techniques to maintain food security despite changing weather patterns?
Short answer
Key finding
Women’s seed-saving and conservation practices are crucial for maintaining food security and adapting to climate variability, but gender-based resource access limitations hinder their ability to fully leverage their agricultural knowledge.
Short summary
Women play a critical role in maintaining food security by adopting traditional crop varieties and seed-saving techniques, particularly through knowledge of seed collection, preservation, and storage. In South Asia, women possess extensive knowledge of various seed varieties, particularly in rice cultivation, and are often the primary custodians of seed conservation. Despite their expertise, gendered constraints limit their ability to fully access resources such as traditional seeds and land, especially during critical seasons like the rainy season. In regions like West Africa, although women are key in seed selection and preservation, patriarchal structures often deny them access to seed banks and control over food resources, especially in times of climate-related crop failure. Informal networks and intergenerational knowledge transfer systems are crucial in preserving these practices and sustaining local biodiversity despite these gendered limitations.
Long answer
Long summary
What is this summary about?
This summary explores how women's knowledge of seed-saving practices and crop varieties supports adaptation to climate variability, despite facing gendered barriers that restrict access to resources and decision-making power.
What evidence is this summary based on?
This summary is based on one systematic review:
Ramirez-Santos, A.G., Ravera, F., Rivera-Ferre, M.G. et al. (2023). Gendered traditional agroecological knowledge in agri-food systems: a systematic review. J Ethnobiology Ethnomedicine 19, 11. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13002-023-00576-6
What are the main findings?
Ramirez-Santos et al. (2023) discusses how women play a central role in maintaining food security through traditional seed-saving techniques and the conservation of genetic resources. The study emphasizes that women, particularly in South Asia and West Africa, are key custodians of genetic resource conservation, contributing significantly to seed collection, preservation, and indigenous crop cultivation.
In regions like South Asia, women possess extensive knowledge about seed varieties, particularly in rice cultivation, where they are the primary custodians of seed collection, preservation, and storage. This knowledge is crucial for ensuring agricultural resilience in the face of changing weather patterns. For instance, women in the Bhar tribe in Uttar Pradesh, India are key to the conservation and management of rice seeds, which is vital for food production. While seed collection and preservation are typically seen as women’s domains, other agricultural practices, such as the selection, sowing, and cultivation of rice, are often considered men's responsibilities.
In South Asia, this gendered division of labour restricts women’s access to land and traditional seeds, especially during the rainy season when they have limited control over rice cultivation. Women in Ghana face challenges in accessing seed banks, which have declined over time, mainly due to systemic marginalisation. Men often control seed allocation, and during times of crop failure, women’s access to food and granaries is limited. This control over agricultural resources can intensify during periods of climate variability, exacerbating food insecurity for women and their families.
Despite these gendered challenges, women’s extensive knowledge of traditional crop varieties and seed management remains crucial for enhancing food security. They are often the guardians of agricultural genetic diversity, ensuring the preservation of local biodiversity through seed exchange systems and informal institutions that pass down knowledge from one generation to the next. However, access to these resources is frequently hindered by gendered power structures that limit women’s control over the seeds they help conserve.
The evidence is derived from one systematic review with a low confidence rating, as assessed using the AMSTAR 2 critical appraisal tool
Review summaries
Gendered traditional agroecological knowledge in agri-food systems: a systematic review
Review
Geography
Year
Citation
Number of included studies
Review type
Critical appraisal of included studies
Assessment review
1. Key finding
Overall/Women and girls-related
Women are pivotal custodians of traditional agro-ecological knowledge (TAeK, driving climate resilience and agrobiodiversity conservation through practices like seed preservation, food security initiatives, and resource management, despite facing systemic barriers rooted in gendered norms and unequal access to land, water, and decision-making.
2. Short summary
The review highlights the critical role of gender in shaping traditional agro-ecological knowledge (TAeK) across diverse systems. Women play a vital role in subsistence farming, seed preservation, and food conservation, ensuring food security and agrobiodiversity conservation. In contrast, men often handle heavy labor, irrigation, and ethnoveterinary tasks. Regional differences exist; for instance, South Asian women excel in seed preservation, while men dominate infrastructure-related activities. Similarly, women in forestry gather edible and medicinal plants, while men manage tree species for fodder and construction.
Gendered inequities often restrict women’s access to land, seeds, forests, and water, marginalizing their contributions and limiting autonomy. Despite these barriers, women rely on informal networks to share knowledge, sustain TAeK, and address biodiversity loss and climate variability through strategies like soil conservation, crop protection, and wild plant gathering during food scarcity. Gendered divisions of labor in agroforestry, cropping, and home gardening further burden women, limiting their decision-making power while increasing domestic responsibilities. Yet, they remain crucial custodians of TAeK, particularly in seed conservation, medicinal plants, and food preservation. The review emphasises the importance of equitable access to resources to harness women’s knowledge for sustainable, climate-resilient agricultural practices.
3. Long summary
3.1 PICOS
Concept: Gendered exploration of TAeK in agri-food systems and traditional agricultural knowledge
Context: No specific region
3.2 Risk of bias - Not assessed
3.3 Publication bias - Not assessed
3.4 Findings
The review addresses gender as a critical factor influencing traditional agro-ecological knowledge (TAeK) across diverse agroecosystems. It underscores the necessity of exploring gendered differences in TAeK related to production, transformation, and conservation of resources, emphasizing how men’s and women’s daily experiences shape and sustain this knowledge. Women are primarily associated with gathering practices, which are often linked to subsistence farming and fulfilling family needs, whereas men tend to focus on gathering construction and fodder resources in distant locations. Both genders possess TAeK regarding plant characteristics, harvesting periods, and uses for culinary, medicinal, and ethnoveterinary purposes, but their expertise often differs by age, location, and societal roles.
In livestock management, gendered roles vary across regions. In East Africa, women focus on caring for smaller animals and milk processing, whereas men in West Africa are more knowledgeable about livestock. In Europe and Asia, studies highlight women’s involvement in feeding, milking, and administering medication, contrasting with men’s focus on transhumance and ethnoveterinary practices.
Gendered patterns in TAeK are evident in genetic resource conservation, cultivation methods, and small-scale farming. For instance, South Asian women play a significant role in seed collection and preservation, while men are more involved in irrigation and infrastructure. Women’s contributions to food sovereignty are notable in indigenous crop cultivation and home gardening, as observed in South Africa and West Africa, where they ensure food availability and household income.
Forestry-related TAeK also displays gender-based distinctions. In Asia, Africa, and the Americas, women often engage in gathering wild edible plants and medicinal resources, while men’s activities are more oriented toward managing specific tree species and their uses. Such practices contribute to health sovereignty and the sustainable use of forest resources, underscoring the complementary nature of gendered TAeK.
The review also explores gendered disparities in access to land, seeds, forests, and water, highlighting how patriarchal systems and customary laws often privilege men. Women face significant barriers, such as restricted land rights, limited participation in decision-making, and exclusion from seed and water resource management, which curtail their ability to utilize their traditional agro-ecological knowledge (TAeK). Although women often excel in seed conservation and crop management, societal norms and unequal resource control marginalize their contributions, particularly in regions like South Asia and West Africa. These inequities reinforce gender roles, limiting women's autonomy and compounding their workload in agricultural and domestic spheres.
Informal networks among women play a vital role in sustaining TAeK, which is crucial for adapting to climate change and conserving agrobiodiversity. Gendered divisions of labor are evident in agroforestry, cropping, and homegardening systems, where women typically handle tasks like seed conservation, weeding, and homegardeing, while men undertake heavier tasks such as land clearing and pruning. Women are key custodians of knowledge in areas like food conservation, seed preservation, and medicinal plant use, contributing significantly to family sustenance and agroecological resilience. However, sociocultural norms often restrict their roles, with men dominating tasks related to forage conservation, veterinary practices, and heavy labor. These disparities highlight the interplay between gendered labor divisions and knowledge systems, emphasizing the need for equitable resource access to harness the full potential of women’s knowledge in building climate-resilient and sustainable agroecosystems. Women adopt strategies like soil conservation, crop protection, and wild plant gathering to address biodiversity loss and food scarcity. They rely on informal networks and institutions to preserve and transfer knowledge across generations, while men's involvement is limited in some contexts, such as agropastoral systems in Europe
3.5 Sensitivity analysis - Not assessed
4. AMSTAR 2 assessment of the review
| 1 | Did the the review state clearly the components of PICOS (or appropriate equivalent)? | Yes | |
| 2 | Did the report of the review contain an explicit statement that the review methods were established prior to the conduct of the review and did the report justify any significant deviations from the protocol? (i.e. was there a protocol) | No | |
| 3 | Did the review authors use a comprehensive literature search strategy? | No | |
| 4 | Did the review authors perform study selection in duplicate? | No | |
| 5 | Did the review authors perform data extraction in duplicate? | No | |
| 6 | Did the review authors provide a list of excluded studies and justify the exclusions? | No | |
| 7 | Did the review authors describe the included studies in adequate detail? (Yes if table of included studies, partially if other descriptive overview) | No | |
| 8 | Did the review authors use a satisfactory technique for assessing the risk of bias (RoB) in individual studies that were included in the review? | No | |
| 9 | Did the review authors report on the sources of funding for the studies included in the review? | No | |
| 10 | If meta-analysis was performed did the review authors use appropriate methods for statistical combination of results? | NA | |
| 11 | Did the review authors provide a satisfactory explanation for, and discussion of, any heterogeneity observed in the results of the review? | NA | |
| 12 | If they performed quantitative synthesis did the review authors carry out an adequate investigation of publication bias (small study bias) and discuss its likely impact on the results of the review? | NA | |
| 13 | Did the review authors report any potential sources of conflict of interest, including any funding they received for conducting the review? | Yes | |
| Overall (lowest rating on any critical item) | Low | ||
5. Count of references to the following words
| Sex | 0 |
| Gender | 157 |
| Women | 155 |
| Intra-household | 0 |