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In Switzerland farm succession is predominantly patrilinear and controlled by a patriarchal system of succession. A postal survey on farm succession in Switzerland in 2004 elucidated the gender patterns of conditions of succession: the current share of female farm operators stands at 6%. There are no trends towards change. The number of potential female successors ready to take over the farm in the next generation cited by the present operator is again 6% (Rossier & Wyss, 2006). In Switzerland by law women and men are considered equal in all ambits of life. The Act on Gender Equality came into force in 1996. Since then all federal laws that treated women differently from men have been amended.

The purpose of this study is to determine the impact of off-farm work on food security in rural Bangladesh. We use rural household-level data and a nonparametric propensity score matching (PSM) estimator. Matching estimators are used in observational data to address the potential selection biases caused by nonrandom allocation of the treatment. Monthly food-consumption data and household income and expenditure surveys from rural Bangladesh for 2013–2014 are used in this chapter. We found that rural Bangladeshi households participating in nonfarm income-generating activities, especially in higher return nonfarm employment, enjoy higher levels of per-capita food expenditures and diet diversity – two of the measures of food security. In particular, we find that rural households increased diet diversity in cereals, fruits and vegetables, and meats. Finally, our estimates reveal that rural households participating in off-farm work increased per-capita food consumption by about Taka 1,576, on average, and increased per-capita expenditures on milk and milk products (Taka 212), and fruits and vegetables (Taka 235) significantly. Policy makers should design and implement policies that create off-farm livelihood activities. These nonfarm activities would help smallholder farm families to diversify, to supplement their income, and to continue their agricultural operations as well as increase food security.

Being constantly exposed to emerging economic and environmental challenges and other external shocks, such as the recent pandemic, agrifood systems must be resilient and adaptive. The Danish AgriFood System (DAFS) adopted a number of organisational changes in response to environmental demands and external shocks, both in the sector and the management by public authorities, leading to the development of new strategies and instruments. The DAFS has demonstrated an ability to anticipate, to be proactive and to recover quickly from difficulties, exhibiting remarkable resilience and the capacity to adapt and to position itself as a frontrunner in sustainable agrifood. In this process, the organisational institutional settings play a prominent role, where public and private actors interact and coordinate their activities, develop synergies and resolve conflicts within collaborative governance structures. The DAFS provides four interlinked and equally important success stories worth emulating: governance, cooperation, professionalism and social capital. Governance structures incorporating the state-administration-agrifood sector in close collaboration provide the necessary institutional conditions for adaptation and the accommodation of new solutions to emerging problems. Integrated cooperative organisation ensures the fair distribution of the added value and enables the resolution of conflicts and consensus-driven decisions. High levels of expertise and professionalism support the sector to identify new strategies and viable innovative solutions in the long term, responding to new demands while remaining competitive by promoting and externalising sector interests. Strong social capital binds everything together and ensures sustainability and resilience.

Investments in gender training for agricultural researchers have not attained expected outcomes, bringing into question the efficacy of training approaches used. New approaches for transformative gender training need to draw on lessons learned from previous courses. This chapter analyses short gender training courses identified using a scoping methodology. Selected courses offered between 2005 and 2015 for scientists in Eastern Africa were critiqued against a theoretical framework for transformative gender training. Also shared is a training model (Gender Responsive Researchers Equipped for Agricultural Transformation course) that addresses gaps in previous courses. The chapter identifies critical lessons for facilitating transformative gender training for non-gender research practitioners which include the need for inter-disciplinary grounding in the disciplines of gender and agriculture, having a phased course delivery and the value of continuous technical support during and after training. Gender training models should also allow for the deepening of gender awareness and consciousness by providing safe spaces for personal reflections on the root causes of gender inequalities and for the questioning of the internalized norms and biases.

This chapter reports on a study of the benefits of the Integrated Education in Agricultural Entrepreneurship (IEAE). IEAE substantially covers the transfer of knowledge, skills, and attitudes that will allow in each farmer-learner to plan, to launch, and to manage his/her own business and it should be approached from leadership perspective and as a life-long learning process. Entrepreneurship constitutes an important factor that determines the level of economic growth, competitiveness, employment, and social prosperity of a small country such as Greece (Spanoudaki, 2008). For purposes of this chapter agricultural entrepreneurship is defined as an effort developed individually or collectively for the exploitation of resources that the individual or the team allocates for the production of useful agricultural products, services, or goods connected with the production of agricultural products and their distribution in the market, satisfying market needs. According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (Bosma & Levie, 2010), entrepreneurship is conceptualized as each effort for building a new business or a new activity, such as the free profession, where the creation of a new business, or the extension of an existing one, is done by an individual or by teams of individuals, from public institutions or from established private businesses.

Smallholder families in Papua New Guinea (PNG) feed the nation and produce income-generating cash crops such as coffee and cocoa. However, agricultural extension has not yet effectively reached many farming families in the country, and many families still work with semi-subsistence practices. As a result, the majority of farming families have insecure livelihoods, with many living below the poverty line. This chapter explores a collaborative research for development project that sought to address this issue.

Using data from two highlands sites in the Western Highlands and Jiwaka provinces, we outline the empowerment processes we developed in both our research and our learning activities. We illustrate how the experiential learning processes enabled women, especially those with low education, to confidently engage in this form of agricultural extension. Our work surfaced the knowledge of both women and men and supported families to determine how to work together in effective and equitable planned farming.

Agriculture and related businesses in Ghana for the past decades have been the preserve for the smallholder, aged and illiterate farmers. Meanwhile, hundreds of students graduate in Agricultural Sciences from the universities over the years. This study seeks to investigate potential determinants of the entrepreneurial spirit of agricultural students to do self-employed businesses in the agricultural sector. A survey of 165 undergraduate students of agriculture in the University of Cape Coast, Ghana was undertaken to examine factors that influence their decision to enter into agribusiness as a self-employment venture after graduation. The results show that the majority of the students were males (87%) and approximately, 67% were willing to enter into agribusiness after school. The factors that students perceived to be hindrance to entering into agribusiness was the market competition of agro-products with imported products, unstable prices of agro-products, absence of insurance policy for agribusiness and unfavourable land tenure arrangement in Ghana. Correlation analysis showed negative and significant relationship between students’ willingness to enter agribusiness as a self-employment venture and the following personal characteristics: (1) level of education of mother, (2) level of education of guardian other than parents, (3) students who live in farming communities and (4) students who undertake farming activities at home. There were also positive and significant relationships between students’ willingness to enter agribusiness and the following: (1) availability of market for agro-products, (2) accessibility of market for agro-products and (3) accessibility of transportation facilities for agribusiness. Regression analysis showed that (1) level of education of mother, (2) students living in farming communities, (3) accessibility of transportation facilities for agribusiness and (4) accessibility of market for agro-product were the factors that best predict undergraduate agricultural students’ willingness to enter into agribusiness as a self-employment venture after graduation. To motivate students to take agribusiness as self-employment after graduation, the study suggests the development of comprehensive and sustainable long-term policy to inspire and attract the youth into agribusiness; creation of conducive environment to minimise risk and constraints associated with agribusiness in Ghana.

The research on the positive effects of children’s learning in and with nature is persuasive yet a deeper examination of the contemporary and historical discourses suggests that the school garden has been neither welcoming nor accessible to all children. Its detrimental effects on groups of children have been masked within the discourses of urban children’s health and wellbeing, environmental stewardship, and children’s connection with nature. The school garden has been used historically to enact adult agendas to contain and protect urban children from the social ills of modernity; civilise and assimilate marginalised, impoverished, and immigrant groups; and make future industrial and agricultural labourers who would in turn, entrench the white affluent society’s economic and social positions. In this sense, the school garden was used to reinforce patriarchal, colonial, white supremacist, and eugenic aspirations. We consider the school garden movement in North America through a discourse analysis of historical school garden texts to explore how childhoods were culturally constructed and how these discourses have influenced children both in the past and present.