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Supporting access and implementation of agricultural extension services for female smallholder farmers : a systematic review

Nyberg, Ylva ; Mackay, Heather LU orcid ; Wilson, Merezia ; Samkunde, Mohamed and Wetterlind, Johanna (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)
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author
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organization
publishing date
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}},
}