Supporting access and implementation of agricultural extension services for female smallholder farmers : a systematic review
(2025) In International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability 23(1).- 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... (More)
- 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. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/861741d0-0aea-40bd-b814-6c41a5db9ccb
- author
- Nyberg, Ylva
; Mackay, Heather
LU
; Wilson, Merezia ; Samkunde, Mohamed and Wetterlind, Johanna
- organization
- publishing date
- 2025-06-16
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- in
- International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability
- volume
- 23
- issue
- 1
- pages
- 25 pages
- publisher
- Taylor & Francis
- ISSN
- 1473-5903
- DOI
- 10.1080/14735903.2025.2505387
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- 861741d0-0aea-40bd-b814-6c41a5db9ccb
- date added to LUP
- 2025-06-17 14:35:32
- date last changed
- 2025-06-19 11:37:44
@article{861741d0-0aea-40bd-b814-6c41a5db9ccb, 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.}}, author = {{Nyberg, Ylva and Mackay, Heather and Wilson, Merezia and Samkunde, Mohamed and Wetterlind, Johanna}}, issn = {{1473-5903}}, language = {{eng}}, month = {{06}}, number = {{1}}, publisher = {{Taylor & Francis}}, series = {{International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability}}, title = {{Supporting access and implementation of agricultural extension services for female smallholder farmers : a systematic review}}, url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14735903.2025.2505387}}, doi = {{10.1080/14735903.2025.2505387}}, volume = {{23}}, year = {{2025}}, }