1st Edition
Agricultural Commercialization, Gender Equality and the Right to Food Insights from Ghana and Cambodia
This volume explores agricultural commercialization from a gender equality and right to food perspective.
Agricultural commercialization, involving not only the shift to selling crops and buying inputs but also the commodification of land and labour, has always been controversial. Strategies for commercialization have often reinforced and exacerbated inequalities, been blind to gender differences and given rise to violations of the human rights to food, land, work and social security. While there is a body of evidence to trace these developments globally, impacts vary considerably in local contexts. This book systematically considers these dynamics in two countries, Cambodia and Ghana. Profoundly different in terms of their history and location, they provide the basis for fruitful comparisons because they both transitioned to democracy in the early 1990s, made agricultural development a priority, and adopted orthodox policies of commercialization to develop the sector. Chapters illustrate how commercialization processes are gendered, highlighting distinctive gender, ethnic and class dynamics in rural Ghana and Cambodia and the different outcomes these generate. They also show the ways in which food cultures are changing and the often-problematic impact of these changes on the safety and quality of food. Specific policies and legal norms are examined, with chapters addressing the development and implementation of frameworks on the right to food and land administration. Overall, the volume brings into relief multiple dimensions shaping the outcomes of processes of commercialization, including gender orders, food cultures, policy translation, national and sub-national policies, corporate investments and programmes, and formal and informal legal norms. In doing so, it offers insight not only on our case countries, but also provides proposals to advance rights-based research on food security.
This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of food security, agricultural development and economics, gender, human rights and sustainable development.
Introduction: Agriculture Commercialization, Gender Equality and the Right to Food
Joanna Bourke Martignoni, Christophe Gironde, Christophe Golay, Elisabeth Prügl, Fenneke Reysoo and Dzodzi Tsikata
Section I: Commercialized Livelihoods, Gender and Food Security
Section Introduction: The Food Security and Right to Food Implications of Gendered Land and Agricultural Commercialization
Dzodzi Tsikata
1. From Food-crop to Food-shop. Agricultural Commercialization, Food Security and Gender Relations in Cambodia
Christophe Gironde, Andres Torrico Ramirez, Kim Thida and Amaury Peeters
2. Gender, Agricultural Commercialization and Food Security in Ghana
Fred Dzanku and Dzodzi Tsikata
3. Emerging rural food markets in Kampong Thom (Cambodia): right to food, gender and shifting food cultures
Fenneke Reysoo
4. Gender, Changing Food Cultures and Food Security in the Context of Agricultural Commercialization in Ghana
Promise Eweh and Dzodzi Tsikata
Section II: Gender(ed) Policies for Food Security in a Commercializing World
Section Introduction: Gender(ed) Policies for Food Security
Elisabeth Prügl
5. Gender Mainstreaming in a Hybrid State: Entanglements of Patriarchy and Political Order in Cambodia’s Food Security Sector
Saba Joshi, Muy Seo Ngouv and Elisabeth Prügl
6. Minding the Gap in Agriculture and Food Security: Gender Mainstreaming and Women's Participation in Policy Processes in Ghana
Martha A. Awo and Anna Antwi
7. Agricultural Commercialization and Gender Mainstreaming in Decentralized Ghana: The Politics of Business
Daniel Adu Ankrah, Dzodzi Tsikata and Fred Dzanku
Section III: Rights to Food, Land and Gender Equality in a Commercializing World
Section Introduction: Rights to Food, Land and Gender Equality
Joanna Bourke Martignoni
8. Feminist Legal Geographies of Land Titling, Indebtedness and Resistance in Rural Cambodia
Joanna Bourke Martignoni and Saba Joshi
9. Legal Pluralism, Gender Justice and Right to Food in Agrarian Ghana
Gertrude Dzifa Torvikey and Atudiwe P. Atupare
10. Social Security in the Extractive State: Gender, Land Inheritance and Agrarian Change in Ratanakiri, Cambodia
Alice Beban and Joanna Bourke Martignoni
11. Constitution, Courts, Right to Food and Gender Equality in Ghana
Atudiwe P. Atupare
Conclusion: From the Unequal Harvests of Commercialization to the Right to Food and Gender Equality: What Roles for Governments, Agribusinesses and Rural Communities?
Joanna Bourke Martignoni, Christophe Gironde, Christophe Golay, Elisabeth Prügl and Dzodzi Tsikata
Biography
Joanna Bourke Martignoni is a Senior Researcher at the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights and an Affiliate at the Graduate Institute's Gender Centre, Switzerland.
Christophe Gironde is a Senior Lecturer at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID) in Geneva, Switzerland.
Christophe Golay is Research Fellow and Strategic Adviser on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights at the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights, Switzerland.
Elisabeth Prügl is Professor of International Relations at the Graduate Institute, Geneva, Switzerland where she heads the Institute’s Gender Centre.
Dzodzi Tsikata is Professor of Development Sociology and Director of the Institute of African Studies (IAS) at the University of Ghana.
The authors’ fascinating comparisons between Ghana and Cambodia tease out the complex and complicated relationship between agriculture commercialization, gender, and food security. Many of the chapters provide new insights and specific policy recommendations about the links between agricultural commercialization, food security, gender, and the right to food that could be applied across multiple countries.
Carolyn Sachs, Professor Emerita of Rural Sociology, Pennsylvania State University, USA
