Gender and economy. Visibility of the contribution of women in peasant family agriculture in Paraguay. Year 2019

Abstract

The article analyzes the contribution of women in family farming and delves into the possibility that women have to access land, credit and technology, elements that generate agricultural development and why not, enhancers of the economic autonomy of the producers. The social and production relations present in peasant family agriculture present peculiar contexts in relation to other types of agricultural models, one of them refers to the work of women and the magnitude of their labor contribution in the family establishment, in addition to be the fundamental pillar in the promotion of food security. The economic and social contribution of women in family farming should be made visible and subject to public policies to promote gender equality in the rural context, meaning the generation of channels for the participation of women throughout the development of the chain. value of production, promoting the recognition of women as main actors in the sustainability of the agro-family model and food sovereignty. Regarding the methodology, it is developed from an analysis of quantitative information, for which use was made of the data provided by the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock through the Directorate of Agrarian Extension (DEAg) with all the programs that intervene in Family Farming and the National Statistics Institute (DGEEC) with the Permanent Household Survey (EPH) and the Time Use Survey (EUT), considering for the Household Survey a temporality of 10 years and, for the case of the time use survey corresponding to the year 2016, as well as the National Agricultural Census (CAN) of the year 2008. Among the main results, it can be observed that rural women suffer more strongly from poverty, 23.0% of them are in poverty and 8.7% in extreme poverty, 24% of rural women work As family workers without receiving any salary, when it comes to agricultural exploitation, women are at a greater disadvantage than men, in the stratum of less than one hectare they represent 36% of the producers, while their participation is reduced to 15 % in those with more than 1,000 hectares. 44% of inactive rural women indicate as the main reason to perform housework, which is consistent with the greater burden of unpaid work that they must endure, which means greater problems of insertion into the labor market, greater labor informality and, hence the impossibility of developing a full life, this coupled with the little participation that they have in the productive and financing projects developed by the government and the almost zero access to land ownership.