body bg

Inform-Banner

Does climatic crisis in Australia's food bowl create a basis for change in agricultural gender relations?

  • Year: 2013
  • Author: Alston, Margaret; Whittenbury, Kerri
  • Journal Name: Agriculture and Human Values
  • Journal Number: 30.1
  • Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
  • Published Location: Netherlands
  • ISBN: 0889048X
  • Country: Australia

An ongoing crisis in Australian agriculture resulting from climate crises including drought, decreasing irrigation water, more recent catastrophic flooding, and an uncertain policy environment is reshaping gender relations in the intimate sphere of the farm family. Drawing on research conducted in the Murray-Darling Basin area of Australia we ask the question: Does extreme hardship/climate crises change highly inequitable gender relations in agriculture? As farm income declines, Australian farm women are more likely to be working off farm for critical family income while men continue to work on farm often in circumstances of damaged landscapes, rising debt, and limited production. This paper examines the way gender relations are being renegotiated in a time of significant climate crisis. Our research suggests that climate crises have indeed led to changes in gender relations and that some changes are unexpected. Whereas one would logically assume that women’s enhanced economic contribution would increase their power in gender negotiations, we argue that this does not necessarily occur because their contribution is viewed as a farm survival strategy. Men are committed to prioritizing the farm and view women’s income generating work as critical to this purpose and yet, paradoxically, long for a return to traditional farm roles. We find that women are actively resisting traditional gender relations by reshaping a role for themselves beyond the farm—in the process moving physically and mentally away from a farm family ideology, questioning gender inequalities, and by extension their relationships.

Related Items

Regional labour force trends and NSW electorates

An interactive map overlays ABS labour force regional data with NSW electoral boundaries to...

Workers on 457 visas: evidence from the Western Australian resources sector

This article shows that in 2011-2012 the Australian resources sector was challenged by sharp...

Labour Market Outcomes in Regional Australia

Labour market outcomes in regional areas of Australia have followed broadly similar trends to...

Share this with your friends

Footer Logo

Contact Us

Level 2, 53 Blackall Street
Barton ACT 2600
AUSTRALIA
Telephone: 02 6260 3733
or email us