Consuming rural development policies: are there gender differences in Italian agriculture?

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AbstractRecent rural development policies aim at stimulating a new paradigm of rural development, with a new role for agricultural activities. A completely renewed set of opportunities is available for farms that, if well exploited, could be a relevant tool to improve agricultural activity. The aim of our paper is to describe gender differences in the access to policies for agriculture and rural development. The analysis permits us to investigate the farms' strategies on a gender base and to qualify the new frontiers for agricultural activities, by discriminating women's and men's contribution.Key words: rural development policies, gender differences, farm strategies.IntroductionThe gradual dismantling of the coupled support model means moving towards a new European agriculture design and a new competitive arena where farms have to compete. To cope with this, the supply policy has become much more articulated and capable of satisfying all the possible strategies undertaken by farmers, from both a sector and a territorial perspective. The second pillar of the Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union, which is becoming even more important for the distribution of total expenditure, foresees a set of measures aimed at sustaining both sustainable and multifunctional agriculture and rural development (OECD, 2003). New roles in the agricultural sector have taken shape (Marsden 2003; van der Ploeg et al. 2000; van der Ploeg and Long 1995), in an even more complex scenario, where the relation between local and global has a need for innovative resources on a territorial basis.The routes for farm development can either orbit on homologated paths, linked to traditional core business, or they may follow processes of boundary shift (Banks et al. 2002). Processing and qualification of agricultural products, farm diversification and other multifunctional activities, if properly exploited, can allow the revival of farms. To this end, the policies for agricultural and rural development provide a wide range of instruments. The ability to exploit these opportunities is not always evenly distributed among farms but depends either on their traits or on their strategies (Caillavet, Facchini and Moreddu, 2005). Social, demographic and structural characteristics of the enterprise can condition their behaviour and limit the propensity to use this policy (Meert et al., 2005). Among the socio-demographical elements, possible differentiations in the use of rural development policies could be gender-based.Literature on gender and agriculture in developed countries recognises the particularity of women's role in the agricultural sector, due to the overlapping between productive and reproductive activities (Errington and Gasson, 1993). Little (2006) points out three perspectives on women's role in agriculture, corresponding to three different periods: during the first phase (1970s) women are considered as domestic workers and as simple help for male farmers (Sachs, 1983; Berg, 2004). A second period (during 1980s) witnesses a more intensive and visible participation of women in farm activity, even if limited to activities of integration of family income, through economic diversification, for example rural tourism (Little and Panelli, 2003). In the most recent period (starting from 1990s), women's role in agriculture is analysed under different perspectives: as an off-farm worker who contributes to the farm family income (Oldrup, 1999); as an entrepreneur, responsible for the farm and involved in decision-making processes, but still linked to a patriarchal vision, where the interference of the senior members in decision-making is relevant (Little and Austin, 1996; Shortall, 2002); and finally, as an entrepreneur with a different strategic behaviour compared to men, for example in sustaining and promoting sustainable agriculture (Bock, 2004). In this perspective, women are free to decide and to adopt their strategic decisions. …