Contemporary Feminist Analysis of Australian Farm Women in the Context of Climate Changes

Climate changes are reshaping agricultural production and food security across the globe (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC], 2014b), leading to increased uncertainty (Torquebiau et al., 2015), changing production processes (Bryant et al., 2016), greater levels of outmigration from rural areas for alterna-tive income (Alston, 2015), and a reshaped agricultural workforce (Preibisch &Grez, 2010). As these impacts take hold, significant gendered workforce realignments are underway in agricultural production units. One result evident across the world is that women are having a much greater role in food production and now comprise 43% of the global agricultural workforce (Food and Agriculture Organization [FAO], 2013; World Bank, 2012; World Bank, 2017), over 50%in many Asian nations, and over 40% in southern Africa (FAO, 2010; World Bank, 2017). Nonetheless, there is far less documented information on women’s contribution to agriculture in developed countries and almost no systematic data collection in Australia. This is despite the fact that 99% of the 134,000 Australian farms are run as family farms (National Farmers’ Federation, 2012), confirming that Australian agriculture is highly dependent on the labour flexibility female and male family members provide.