Suchergebnisse

A new crop: women farmers in a shifting agriculture -- Tilling the soil for change: claiming the farmer identity -- Sowing the seeds of change: innovative paths to land, labor and capital -- Reaping a new harvest: women farmers re-defining agriculture, community, and sustainability -- Constructing a new table: women farmers negotiate agriculture institutions and organizations, creating new agricultural networks -- From the ground up: a feminist agrifood systems theory.

AbstractThe identities of women on farms are shifting as more women enter farming and identify as farmers, as reflected by the 30 percent growth in women farmers in the U.S. census of agriculture (USDA 2009). This article draws from identity theory to develop a quantitative measure of the identities of farm women. The measure incorporates multiple roles farming women may perform and weights these roles by their salience to two farm identities, farm operator and farm partner. We use a sample of women on farms (n = 810) in the northeastern United States to assess the measures of role identity in relation to reported decision‐making authority, farm tasks, and farm and individual characteristics. The findings provide a multidimensional view of farming women in the northeastern United States, a far more complex view than traditional survey research has previously captured. This research provides a measure that other researchers can use to assess the multiple and shifting identities of farming women in other sections of the United States.