State of the Art Review RUAF Publications Urban Agriculture Magazine Bibliographic Database Publication Women Feeding Cities Weblinks

Urban and peri-urban women play important roles in feeding the cities by growing, processing and marketing food. The exact nature of these roles and the differences with the roles played by men in urban agriculture differ from country to country and from city to city and even from neighgourhood to neighbourhood, depending the social-cultural backgrounds of the people involved and the local socio-economic, religious and political conditions.

Female urban farmers contribute to both urban household and market economies. Urban agriculture is attractive to many women since it allows them to successfully combine their productive role with reproductive roles in the household (e.g. taking care of young children and elderly people).
Women’s participation in urban agriculture activities is hampered by many constraints at both sectoral and household levels, that are based in societal norms and structures. Female farmers apply various innovative strategies to overcome such constraints.

Those involved in policymaking and action planning on urban agriculture should have a thorough understanding of the gender division of labour and special constraints encountered by women in urban agriculture. Gender sensitive research and planning are needed as well gender mainstreaming in the institutions involved in this sector.

• For a more extensive introduction and review of literature on this subject please go to State of the Art
• Go to RUAF publications for an overview of RUAF publications on this topic (most of which are available online). You may also view the articles in the Urban Agriculture Magazine on this topic
• Search the Bibliographic Database for other literature references, abstracts and online documents on this subject.