Women and agriculture

Women and Agriculture Cornelia B. Flora I _- I CORNELIA BUTLER FLORA is Professorof Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work at Kansas State University. She has published extensively in the areas of women and development and farming systems research. She is currently Program Leader of the Kansas State University Farming Systems Support project. Agriculture is an enterprise that often engages resources from all family members. These resources include land, labor, and capital. Agriculture is unique in the way it combines the factors of production and, thus, unique in the kind of commitment demanded from family members when they are the sources of these factors. The role of women in agriculture -- just as the role of men in agriculture -- can best be understood through analysis of the relationships of each household member to land through ownership or use right; to labor through provision of labor at key times and for key elements in the production cycle; and to capital, in terms of both the mobilization of inputs and the allocation of the surplus produced. It is also important to consider how family members relate to each other and to other production units in providing or exchanging these factors of production over time. Unlike other types of production, agriculture involves r h y t h m s and risks which influence these relationships. This is particularly helpful in u n d e r s t a n d i n g f a m i l y - b a s e d farming, where the unit of production - - the agricultural enterprise -- is coterminous with the unit of reproduction -- the farm household. These considerations also prove helpful when e x a m i n i n g o t h e r w a y s of o r g a n i z i n g agricultural production, including plantation agriculture, hacienda-type agriculture, and even highly industrialized, capital intensive agriculture. Mann and Dickinson have identified a major characteristic that distinguishes agricultural production from i n d u s t r i a l production: the disjuncture between p r o d u c t i o n t i m e a n d l a b o r time. 2 In agricultural production, the r h y t h m of biological processes determines the time it takes to go from sowing to harvest for crops, or from insemination to birth to market for animals. Thus labor time, w h e n labor is actually applied to the production of crops and livestock, is less t h a n production time, which includes the growth process. Further, labor time is organized differently in agriculture t h a n in other types of production, in that farm operations take place sequentially rather t h a n simultaneously. 3 This sequential process has a biological base, since with a n y given crop it is impossible to reap at the same time one sows. Thus, all the factors of production must be mobilized with special attention to the limiting aspects of sequential and irregular production cycles, as well as with an eye to the risks involved due to dependence on nature, which limits predictability through variations in rainfall, temperature, and pests. 4 In the United States and Canada, family labor has been particularly important in the northern and central parts of the country. The availability of slaves in the South and m i g r a n t 5 A G R I C U L T U R E AND H U M A N V A L U E S - WINTER 1985 labor in parts of the West were two systems for labor provision that attempted to overcome the discontinuities between production time and labor time. In other parts of the country, particularly the north and the central regions, the family farm, with the crucial but hidden work of women a n d children, filled in during times of peak labor demand. Further, before large m e c h a n i z a t i o n a n d the r e l a t i v e enterprise specialization that accompanied it, family labor was crucial not only in producing for market but also in producing for subsistence, allowing for cash savings through provision of food and agricultural inputs such as draught power. Such activities also provided a separate income for women, the p r o v e r b i a l egg a n d milk m o n e y . Technology has to a degree overcome some of the lumpiness of labor use in modern agriculture, in such enterprises as dairying, hog raising and poultry production. Yet even in these enterprises, family labor is a crucial element for survival for small and middlesized producers. There is a definite payoff to the family in terms o f solidarity and commitment to the family and its enterprise. There is a cost in terms of the individual sacrificing their interests for the sake of the group. In the North American context, technology and government programs have attempted to reduce the natural risks of production. The current farm crisis, however, suggests that the economic risks of asset devaluation, high real interest rates, a strong U.S. dollar reducing the competitiveness of U.S. farm products on the world market, and a reduced effective world demand due to a debt crisis in the Third World have more impact on the welfare of farm families and are more difficult to overcome than risk due to nature. S o m e crops were his, some were hers, some were theirs, a n d others m a y h a v e belonged to the larger c o m m u n i t y . Intricate relationships a n d hierarchies emerged, a n d w o m e n a n d children were often the resources on w h i c h male hierarchies were based. In m o s t s i t u a t i o n s of p r e c a p i t a l i s t agriculture, family and communal organization, labor, and capital worked together to reduce the risk inherent in agricultural production. Land was rotated or shared through use right rather than formal individual ownership. Capital, in the form of 6 inputs, also was shared and produced within the family or tribal unit. And labor, although highly differentiated by age and sex, was organized in multiple stock, crop, and craft activity. In such situations, the intrafamilial division of resources involved multiple enterprises and multiple production units. Some crops were his, some were hers, some were theirs, and others m a y have belonged to the larger community. Intricate exchange relationships and hierarchies emerged, and women and children were often the resources on which male hierarchies were based2 The f o r m a t i o n s a n d s t r a t e g i e s t h a t developed in different areas were highly diversified. Nevertheless, certain regularities can be distinguished in peasant agriculture. Everyone worked in agricultural production, young and old, men and women, boys and girls. But there was substantial division of labor by sex and by age. What men did in one culture, women might do in another. Men and women's work was highly complementary -that is to say, each depended on the work of the other in order to complete their agricultural endeavors. For example, men might clear the land and plow, while women selected the seed and planted. Women and children would weed, and all would participate in the harvest, with the men reaping and the women threshing and winnowing. If one's h u s b a n d was derelict in his a g r i c u l t u r a l a c t i v i t i e s , o t h e r men (brothers, uncles or cousins) might be counted on to fill in. Men's activities, particularly those related to livestock production, often contributed more directly to status than did women's activities, yet women's agricultural and reproductive work, which were highly intertwined, were not devalued. Separate male and female cultures gave parallel systems of status, as well as separate enterprises, which allowed for reduction of risk and rationalization of resource use over the agricultural cycle. The linkage of peasant agricultural systems to larger economic systems disrupted the sexual complementarity of labor. Access to the factors of production by sex, which previously allowed both men and women to control or use land, labor, and capital, was altered, giving men dominance over all the resources, when the control was not entirely removed from the native peoples. The manner of linkage to larger economic systems varied. In some settings, the linkage was through the trade of agricultural products to other areas. For example, in much of Central Africa, precolonial agricultural production contributed to a highly developed land- and Flora: Women a n d Agriculture sea-based trading system. Colonial penetration established linkages to export raw materials to the "mother" country. The raw materials were of two basic kinds -- mineral a n d agricultural. In both cases, linkages did not m e a n simply t h a t traditional mineral or agricultural crops were traded by the indigenous population. Often colonial powers imposed new forms of production on m i n i n g a n d agriculture. Those new forms influenced the traditional p e a s a n t f a r m i n g systems by disrupting first the relationship of the family to labor a n d t h e n to land. These new linkages a n d the d e m a n d s they m a d e on the family production system placed ever-greater burdens on female producers, while at the s a m e time women h a d less access to the resources necessary to successfully carry out their responsibilities. to mines and plantations by the wages offered a n d p u s h e d by the need for Cash to p a y the newly instituted cash taxes imposed by the colonial powers. Examples of such motivational tax structures were present in both Africa a n d Latin America. In Guatemala, v a g r a n c y laws requiring forced labor or cash p a y m e n t of fines were instituted to get I n d i a n m e n to work in the b a n a n a plantations. 6 The British protectorate of B e c h u a n a l a n d (now Botswana) introduced a poll t a x at the turn of the twentieth century, to be paid in cash, requiring t h a t y o u n g m e n seek work in neighboring countries, either as farm or m i n e labor. This institutionalized expatriate male labor, a n d left w o m e n even more firmly in charge of agricultural production, a l t h o u g h older m e n kept control of cattle, the principal form of wealth in a society where most land is s t i l l c o m m u n a l l y held. 7 Most of the credit and extension services established by colonial powers and later by national governments assumed that men were the primary agricultural producers. In both Africa a n d Latin America, mineral extraction was a major m o t i v a t i n g force for colonial penetration. Myths of rich mines and vast wealth spurred the search for minerals, a search t h a t often was successful in locating u n d e r g r o u n d lodes. Extraction of those deposits required labor -- lots of it. In addition to the export of minerals, agricultural products were exported early. New crops were introduced to increase the wealth of the colonial power. M a n y of these crops were raised under the conditions of p l a n t a t i o n agriculture. Sugar was the first p l a n t a t i o n crop, forming a firm point in the Triangular Trade route for Caribbean sugar cane. B a n a n a s are a later p l a n t a t i o n crop, which shares m a n y similarities with sugar in its d e m a n d for labor, although t h a t d e m a n d is m u c h less seasonal. While sugar competed for t h e best, m o s t c e n t r a l l a n d s , b a n a n a p l a n t a t i o n s often were located in marginal, sometimes malarial, lowland areas. Local labor, slave and free, was s o u g h t for both the m i n e s a n d the plantations. For sugar a n d b a n a n a s (but not for cotton), males were recruited as labor. By using only adult men, the costs of reproducing the labor force were borne by the sending populations, the subsistence agriculture sector. Women were left by default to provide for the reproductive necessaries of the labor force, including the production of food t h r o u g h subsistence agriculture. The more mobile m e n were pulled These two kinds of linkages of f a r m households to larger markets, t h r o u g h the sale or expropriation of labor for both mineral a n d plantation agricultural production, used primarily male labor a n d upset the traditional c o m p l e m e n t a r i t y of agricultural production. Most of the male m i g r a t i o n w a s temporary, with the m e n r e t u r n i n g from time to time with their cash wages. In s u c h situations, the provision of cash afforded greater status t h a n the provision of food. Incipient sex inequality was increased. Women's ability to produce food was severely modified by 1) the lack of available male labor to perform the traditional male tasks, 2) the fact t h a t males often retained decision-making power over the utilization of capital, m a k i n g i n v e s t m e n t in food production extremely difficult, a n d 3) the lack of resources a n d technology aimed at the special conditions of female farmers. Most of the credit a n d extension services established by colonial powers a n d later by n a t i o n a l g o v e r n m e n t s a s s u m e d t h a t m e n were the p r i m a r y agricultural producers, s P l a n t a t i o n agriculture was particularly detrimental for women t h r o u g h its disruption of the family as an agricultural production unit. Plantation agriculture recruited exclusively males, a n d often for longer periods t h a n did m i n i n g work. Indeed, sugar- a n d b a n a n a - b a s e d p l a n t a t i o n agriculture in L a t i n America utilized primarily males, often African slave labor, in contrast to the North AGRICULTURE AND H U M A N VALUES - WINTER 1985 Plantation agriculture was particularly detrimental for women through its disruption of the f a m i l y as an agricultural production unit. American plantation system, which was cotton based and which recruited kidnapped males and females from different parts of Africa in order to reproduce its own labor force. In p l a n t a t i o n a r e a s , t h e t r a d i t i o n of p e r m a n e n t female-headed (dejure) households emerged much earlier t h a n in other parts of the world, where with more temporary male migration, temporary female-headed households (de facto) w¢re more common. In the African and Latin American circumstances of high male participation in plantation agriculture, women often h a d to leave agriculture entirely, and took on roles as traders and craftspersons, since they lacked access to land and capital, as well as the crucial complementary male labor. Other production systems utilized family labor to produce crops t h a t provided the economic link to the colonial powers. In some areas, such as Costa Rica and Colombia in Latin America and G h a n a in Africa, small producers kept control of their land, but changed its use from food crops for home or local consumption to cash crops for export. A market-based, family-farm agriculture was created. Land relationships became formalized under the liberal reform movements of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, family use rights to land were changed to male property rights. Men were generally firmly in control of cash crop production and the income it generated, in part because the colonial buying agents who helped introduce the crops held the maledominant assumptions based on the Victorian ideal of womanhood. It never occurred to them t h a t women were farmers, engaging in both family-based and individual agricultural p r o d u c t i o n e n t e r p r i s e s . Men were t h e recipients of the skill and inputs necessary to produce coffee and cacao, the two export crops for which there are few, if any, economies of scale (and for which there are several diseconomies of scale, because of the relatively intensive care required by these tree crops). Those crops, newly introduced in m a n y areas, became male-owned crops, although family labor, as well as seasonal wage labor, was necessary to produce them. Men and women, boys and girls, all were active in harvesting activities. 8 Hacienda agriculture involved appropriation of the land by the colonial power, who then deeded it to those who h a d provided the crown with enough wealth or conquest to justify their new landed status. The indigenous people on the land were part of the package in the encomienda system that paralleled the land granted by the crown. The peasants, now bound to the land by complex systems of legal and debt peonage, provided labor and received the use of a parcel of land for t h e i r own s u b s i s t e n c e p r o d u c t i o n , following after the feudal land and labor relationships in Europe in the sixteenth century. Hacienda agriculture was much more self-contained t h a n plantation agriculture, with little market orientation. Both male and female labor was used, often extremely cruelly. However, the labor and land relationships m e a n t t h a t the complementarity of male and female agricultural labor, both for the hacienda and in the subsistence plots, was not challenged. Women were crucial in production for both the hacendado and the family2 In all these systems of agricultural production, p e a s a n t , female subsistence, hacienda, and family farm, there was a flexibility t h a t allowed for the family to reproduce itself in times of economic crisis. In all these situations, the family h a d access to the land, whether owned or not, to produce the food necessary when wage work was not to be h a d or w h e n international markets declined. The arrangements in all the linked agricultural production s y s t e m s were exploitative and disadvantaged women, but did provide for a variety of family, survival strategies, as access to subsistence production remained for all b u t a minority of the p l a n t a t i o n workers. The a r r a n g e m e n t s in all the linked agricultural production systems were exploitative and disadvantaged women, but did provide for a variety of family survival strategies, as access to subsistance production remained for all but a minority of the plantation workers. At the same time t h a t raw materials were being exported to the colonial powers, which, even after political independence retained e c o n o m i c h e g e m o n y in t h e i r p r e v i o u s colonies, m a n u f a c t u r e d goods were exported from the central, industrialized countries to their former colonies and new client states. The markets were never large, as skewed income distribution reduced the purchasing power of the vast majority of the populations. Flora: Women and Agriculture But the traditional elite and the small but growing middle-class groups imported consumer goods, from perfume to toothpaste and shoes, as well as capital goods from the industrialized nations. When the world economic situation was sound and the export crops were selling well, they could import lots of consumer goods. When the economic situation was badr and prices for their export products were low, the elites simply cut back on consumption. The agricultural workers in such times devoted more of their labor t o subsistence crops, if only in exhange for services rendered, a share of the crop, or a cash rent (the least common way for peasant producers to gain access to land in the first h a l f of the 20th century). Thus, the depression of the 1930s, while definitely felt in the developing countries of the world, had a muffled impact compared to that in the industrialized countries. A large part of the economy was not linked to international markets and could maintairr itself. And subsistence agriculture was an ever-present alternative, even in areas of highly concentrated land ownership. Women's access to the factors of production and their share in them, while not great, increased in times of crisis and was crucial for family survival among peasant and semi-proletarianized workers -- workers t h a t h a d s m a l l plots for a g r i c u l t u r a l production worked for wages at irregular intervals in response to the agricultural cycle in export crops. Women's access to the factors of production and their share in them, while not great, increased in times of crisis and was crucial for f a m i l y survioal a m o n g p e a s a n t and semi-proletarianized workers ... After the second World War, the nationalism that led to political independence began to address issues of economic independence as well. In Africa and parts of Asia, the two movements tended to coincide, while in Latin America, political independence movements preceded economic independence by as much as 200 years. The move for economic independence sought first to attack the major symbols of dependency -- the importation of manufactured consumer goods. Why, it was reasoned, should we not produce these articles, in our own country? We would not then be sending scarce foreign exchange abroad and we would be c r e a t i n g a l t e r n a t i v e s to agricultural employment at home. The employment envisioned was urban employment for males. The strategy that developed from this reasoning is often referred to as import substitution industrialization: This m e a n s that a nation will produce domestically items t h a t it previously imported. To carry out such a strategy requires a reorganization of capital, land, and labor relations, under the aegis of a strong state. Import substitution strategies involved collaboration between both private a n d public s e c t o r s to c a r r y out t h i s reorganization. In order to substitute national products for imported products, factories h a d to be built. This required capital equipment, which had to be acquired in the international market, using foreign exchange - - generally U.S. dollars. This required loans, either to private industrial groups or to governments, which would then subsidize the factories. But even if the factories were successful in replacing foreign goods (and the state ensured that they would be, by enacting strong tariff barriers to manufactured products), the loans could not be repaid through profits from domestic sales. T h o s e s a l e s w e r e in l o c a l c u r r e n c y , unacceptable in the international market place. In order to repay the loans, foreign exchange must be generated - - and the only sources were the traditional export sectors - minerals and agriculture. Agriculture, in particular, became the source of investment capital in much of Latin America and Asia, although in oil-rich countries, petroleum exports could be the dominant source of foreign exchange. Reorganization of the urban-based economy thus required reorganization of the ruralbased economy. Land, capital, and labor in agriculture had to become more productive. The old ways of production, particularly the extensive hacienda system that encompassed much of the flat arable land, had to shift to intensive production systems. But such a shift also required capital investment, as well as d i f f e r e n t l a b o r r e l a t i o n s . At f i r s t t h e traditional rural elites were hesitant to change, seeing no reason to risk their secure economic and social position by entering the world market. Their strategy, which had s e r v e d them for hundreds of years, was t h a t of low capital and m a n a g e m e n t investment, with multiple enterprises reducing risk. Further, through relative self-sufficiency, risk was limited to environmental factors. Thus modernizing elites, particularly in much of Latin America, instituted a tactic to force the traditional agricultural landlords to A G R I C U L T U R E A N D H U M A N V A L U E S - W I N T E R 1985 Thus modernizing elites, particularly in much of Latin America, instituted a tactic to force the traditional agricultural landlords to become more efficient. It was called land reform, and its goal was increased agricultural efficiency, rather than increased agricultural equity. become more efficient. It w a s called land reform, and its goal w a s increased agricultural efficiency,rather t h a n increased agricultural equity. 1° Either use the land to produce w h a t it is capable of, the new land reforms read, or your land will be given to those who will use it to produce to capacity, paid for at the rate which it is evaluated, by your own declaration, for tax, purposes. Naturally, such low compensation w a s unacceptable, and radical changes in land use b e g a n to occur a m o n g landowners with extensive property holdings. L a n d reform gained a veneer of equity because t h a t same historical period - - t h a t of the 1960s -- w a s a period of heightened p e a s a n t organization and protest. In Latin America, the success of the C u b a n revolution in 1959 underlined the dangers of ignoring inequality. In particular, the United States saw its interests threatened b y p e a s a n t unrest and potential revolution, so the forces of international development were put behind the land reform effort. At the end of two decades of land reform, agricultural land in most Latin American countries r e m a i n s as concentrated as it w a s in 1960.11 F e w p e a s a n t s n o w own land. The land reform decades did not reduce the push factor causing migration to u r b a n areas. Those years were periods of high rural u r b a n migration, as p e a s a n t s left sharecropping situations for potential e m p l o y m e n t in u r b a n industries. But despite h e a v y investment, relatively few jobs were created, a n d the biggest increase in urban e m p l o y m e n t w a s in the informal sector, the sector of the economy where formal, contractual employee-employer relations do not exist, where few statistics enumerate labor force activity, and where relatively little capital is expended per hour of labor time. Informal sector e m p l o y m e n t was dominated b y women, often female heads of household, whose access to the factors of production were further decreased by formalized land relationships, which; when land w a s titled to p e a s a n t s , w a s titled in the n a m e of the m a n only. Further, the land that was deeded to p e a s a n t s was not the productive, centrally located land they coveted, but newly opened 10 land in outlying areas, often isolated and hostile with little infrastructure a n d fragile soils. Women in the p e a s a n t agricultural systems in the colonization areas often lost the female support groups t h a t they h a d in their traditional villages. Because of the lack of c o m m u n i t y organization, w o m e n often joined with the men in field work, which h a d previously been for m e n alone. In addition, w o m e n h a d their traditional work to do, both agricultural and household. And because the agricultural s y s t e m w a s radically different, these p e a s a n t w o m e n were unable to use the skills t h e y h a d acquired from their m o t h e r s in seed selection, soil preparation, a n d food preservation. When such knowledge w a s made available through government and international colonization programs, it w a s m a d e available to the men. The shift to export agriculture m e a n t t h a t land w a s used more intensively t h a n ever before, No longer could small plots be ceded to p e a s a n t families for their own subsistence production. The risk-reducing s t r a t e g y if the hacienda involved mixed crop a n d livestock s y s t e m s with a relatively small gap between total production time a n d total labor time, if p e a s a n t plots were also counted as p a r t of the production system. Export crops tended to be planted in monoculture, requiring large labor inputs at key junctures, with a lot of time w h e n production required no labor skill at all. It w a s difficult to shift the year-round hacienda labor force into a seasonal agricultural labor force, although it did occur with one of the new export crops, cotton. Instead, p e a s a n t s previously involved in their own production s y s t e m s and in hacienda production migrated to u r b a n areas. Large f a r m s increased their capital intensivity - - a n d their need for foreign exchange m b y mechanizing. Often g o v e r n m e n t policy reinforced this trend b y subsidizing the agricultural inputs for export agriculture, while i g n o r i n g t h e c a p i t a l requirements for food production. In m a n y countries in both Africa a n d Latin America, total agricultural production rose at the same time food production fell a n d food imports increased. While there was worldwide inflation and a strong world economy, no one was particularly troubled b y these developments, although they heralded another major shift in women's role in agriculture. The advent of capital intensive export agriculture created a rural labor force totally dependent on sale of its labor. Because m a n y p e a s a n t s lost their use right to land, as a strategy of major l a n d o w n e r s to m a k e sure p e a s a n t s h a d no claim on the land in case land Flora: Women a n d Agriculture for the rural proletariat and peasants, as it increased for women in the upper rural classes, who tended to be removed entirely from agricultural production. In other areas, it left w o m e n in charge of subsistence production, with less access to land, labor, a n d capital. With c o n t i n u e d e c o n o m i c e x p a n s i o n , families were able to m a i n t a i n themselves, often with the increasing wage work of women in agriculture or t h r o u g h their growing participation in the informal sector. However, the w o r l d e c o n o m i c c r i s i s of t h e 1980s d e m o n s t r a t e d how vulnerable t h a t system was -- a n d how the radical reorganization of agriculture h a d decreased its flexibility, in p a r t by f u r t h e r d e t e r i o r a t i o n o f t h e complementarity of men's and women's work in agriculture. The economic depression of the 1980s was worldwide, the worst crisis since the 1930s. But The y e a r 1973 w a s a l a n d m a r k for d e v e l o p i n g while in the 1930s an economic cutback m e a n t countries, as e v e n t s were set in m o t i o n t h a t t h a t the elites a n d the middle class cut back on consumption of imported goods, now decreased g r e a t l y affected the structure o f agriculture c o n s u m p t i o n also m e a n t fewer jobs. U r b a n a r o u n d the world a n d the role of w o m e n in t h a t industrial workers lost their jobs, hit by the structure. double w h a m m y of decreased local markets a n d inefficient, protected enterprises t h a t were not able to compete in an increasingly difficult world market. Total d e m a n d decreased, a n d The year 1973 was a l a n d m a r k for developloans became impossible to roll over. Export ing countries, as events were set in motion t h a t crops, a l r e a d y affected by increasing world greatly affected the structure of agriculture production, earned less and less. A n d the around the world a n d the role of women subsistence fallback, whereby peasant within t h a t structure. It was the year of the families withdrew to small plot subsistence world oil crisis, with drastically increasing oil production to sustain themselves during a prices t h a t dramatically shifted the terms of c r i s i s , h a d b e e n e l i m i n a t e d by t h e trade for most developing countries. In oilt r a n s f o r m a t i o n of agriculture. A r o u n d the p u r c h a s i n g countries with import substitution world, developing countries h a d favored industries highly dependent on petroleum export agriculture over food production a n d imports to r u n their factories, even more m a i n t a i n e d a cheap food policy t h r o u g h pressure was put on the export" sector. More imports. So even the r e m a i n i n g p e a s a n t land went ir~to export crops, even as the prices farmers a n d family farmers h a d little dropped due to overproduction a n d inelastic incentive to grow food. Those programs aimed demand. For the oil-producing countries, it at food production often did not address the m e a n t increased indebtedness, with m u c h of major policy issues, a n d even fewer addressed the borrowed m o n e y used to import food, as the their efforts to the women who by default often s u b s i s t e n c e a g r i c u l t u r e sector, a l r e a d y were left raising the subsistence crops. relegated to w o m e n a n d virtually ignored, The debt crisis in developing countries is became even less viable. Suddenly there were c o m p o u n d e d by s t a g n a n t economies; decline l o t s of p e t r o d o l l a r s to r e c y c l e , a n d in value a n d quantity of exports; decrease in international b a n k s competed to lend money. imports, particularly food t h a t provided It need hardly be stated t h a t males control subsidized m a i n t e n a n c e for u r b a n femaleexport crops. However, class distinctions in headed households disrupted by t e m p o r a r y the rural sector increased, with different roles a n d p e r m a n e n t male migration; increase in in agriculture for women in the different a n d u n e m p l o y m e n t ; increase in public deficits; emerging classes. Deere a n d Leon de Lea112, increasing balance of p a y m e n t deficiencies; a m o n g others, show how in Latin America the a n d increasing inflation. Contradictions sexual division of labor in agriculture declined abound, particularly for women. To solve the reform was really taken seriously, a relatively large rural labor force was available, forcing wages down, except for peak harvest periods. Women and m e n increasingly sold their labor for the same tasks, including the h a r v e s t i n g of coffee (a traditional source of temporary rural e m p l o y m e n t for women in p e a s a n t families) a n d cotton a n d for weeding a n d other cultivation tasks in row crops. Women again h a d to do the same agricultural work as men, this time for a wage, and still be responsible for their household tasks. Marital instability increased in this group of disenfranchised hacienda residents. Some of t h e m squatted on u n u s e d land, but increasingly were driven off by g o v e r n m e n t forces, in part because of the growing pressures for exports during the 1970s. 11 AGRICULTURE AND H U M A N V A L U E S - WINTER 1985 long-term problem of production disincentives, food costs m u s t rise. An increase in food costs hits most heavily at the poor, and women and the children in the households they head are most likely to be poor in developing countries, as in the United States. Thus, although the economic crisis itself m a y not be worse t h a n t h a t of the 1930s, its impact is much more severe, since the fallback survival strategies have been eliminated. In developing countries, the role of women in agriculture continues to be vital, but hidden. While a f f e c t e d n e g a t i v e l y by p l a n n e d change 13, it is the u n p l a n n e d change t h a t most directly breaks down the complementary roles in agricultural production and increases the disparity between the landless peasants and the major landowners. Women are key producers in the often-female-headed landless peasant families, but m a r g i n a l to production, except through wage labor, in the extensive land holdings oriented to export agriculture. The complexity of women's contribution to the variety of production enterprises related to food production, both crop and animal, as well as the replacement of those enterprises by capital intensive agricultural enterprises and imports (when available) need to be examined. Planned programs must keep fully in mind the productive activities of female farmers, their differential access to land, labor, and capital, and the fact that their productive activities must almost always be combined with their reproductive, or household-based activities. Planned programs m u s t keep fully in m i n d the productive activities of female farmers, their differential access to land, labor, and capital, and the fact t h a t their productive activities must almost always be combined with their reproductive, or household-based activities, which include cooking and other forms of food processing, gathering fuel, and carrying water. As high debt a n d international agencies, such as the International Monetary Fund, combine to limit the potential of developing countries to import f o o d and m a i n t a i n cheap food policies, recognition of the key role of women in food production and the disadvantaged conditions under which they do it must be part of the national calculus. Because of their work for the household and the multiple activities they carry out in agricultural production, particularly small farm production, women as agriculturalists 12 H A n increase in food costs hits most heavily at the poor, and women and the children in the households they head are most likely to be poor in developing countries, as in the United States. tend to minimize the gap between production time a n d labor time. Household, handicraft, off-farm labor, as well as a variety of animal and crop enterprises, including g a r d e n i n g and egg and milk production, contribute to providing necessary labor when peak labor times in crop or a n i m a l production occur. Further, women's multiple enterprises help rural families reduce the risk t h a t linkage to i n t e r n a t i o n a l m a r k e t s , i n c l u d i n g credit, inputs and sales, entails. When women are excluded from agriculture, however unintentionally, the farm family's ability to overcome the built-in difficulties of agriculture as a form of production are limited. References 1. Contribution 85-227-J from the Kansas Agricultural Experiment Station. 2. Mann, S.A. end J.M. Dickinson. "Obstacles to the development of a capitalist agriculture." Journal of Peasant Studies 5 (1978):466-81. 3. Brewster, John M. "The machine process in agriculture and industry." Journal of Farm Economics 32 (1950):69-81. 4. Pfeffer, Max. "Social origins of three systems of farm production in the United States." Rural Sociology 48 (1983):540-62. 5. Paige, Karen Erick~sen and Jeffery M. Paige. The Politics of Reproductive Ritual. Berkeley: The University of California Press, 1981. 6. Brown, Andrea. "Land of the few: Rural land ownership in Guatemala" In Revolution in Central America, Stanford Central America Action Network (eds.) Boulder: Westview Press (1983):232-47. 7. Campbell, Alex. The Guide to Botswana. Gaborone: Winchester Press, 1980, p. 230. 8. Staudt, Kathleen. Women and participation in rural development: A framework for project design and policy oriented research. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Center for International Studies, 1979. 9. Carrion, Lucia. La mujer en la hacienda lechera ecuadoriana. Quito: CEPLAES, 1983. 10. Barsky, Osvaldo and Gustavo Cosse. Tecnologia y cambio social: Las haciendas lecheras del Ecuador. Quito: FLASCO, 1981. 11. de Janvry, Alain. The Agrarian Question and Reformism in Latin America. Baltimore: The John Hopkins Press, 1982. 12. Deere, Carmen Diana and Magdalena Leon de Leal. Women in agriculture: Peasant production and rural wage employment in Colombia and Andean Peru. Geneva: International Labor Organization, 1982. 13. Nash, June. "Implications of technological change for household level and rural development." Michigan State University Women in Development Working Paper #37, October, 1983.