Skip to main content
SLU publication database (SLUpub)

Abstract

Women have always played a central role in smallholder agriculture in many farming systems of the Global South. However, they have had, and still have, low access to agricultural information, and even less ability to enact on training or advice received, in comparison to male farmers. The paper investigates what is needed for female smallholders to better benefit from agricultural advice and training. A systematic literature review of 2665 articles, with data extraction from 111 articles was implemented. A thematic content analysis on the articles that were ranked as highly relevant gave further insights into critical factors needed for agricultural advisory services to better serve women farmers in contexts across the Global South. Our findings show how a focus on the women themselves, in terms of their basic education, their time burden, their confidence, is insufficient if approaches do not also consider the relations of women with men in the context and the gendered power dynamics. Policy, research and extension must grapple with these deeper and more sensitive aspects of societal norms, traditions, and structural inequalities that perpetuate unequal terms for female farmers.

Keywords

Agricultural training; developing countries; empowerment; gender sensitive extension, women

Published in

International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability
2025, volume: 23, number: 1, article number: 2505387
Publisher: TAYLOR AND FRANCIS LTD

SLU Authors

UKÄ Subject classification

Other Agricultural Sciences not elsewhere specified
Gender Studies

Publication identifier

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14735903.2025.2505387

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/142527