ACCTING Factsheet: Local is beautiful

Agriculture and rural areas are central to the European Green Deal. With the growing food crisis, environmentally sustainable and gender+ inclusive small-scale farming has the potential to play a prominent role in food security, as well as in soil regeneration, reduction of land degradation, mitigation of disasters, and the preservation of biodiversity and cultural diversity. The majority of the 10 million farms in the EU are small farms, only 30% of which are managed by women. There is an increasing amount of literature establishing a link between gender and sustainability, especially regarding sustainable farming practices: women farmers are more often involved in alternative and environmentally friendly approaches.
Yet, existing EU policies fall short of supporting environmentally sustainable, gender inclusive small farming, thereby strengthening existing vulnerabilities and missing opportunities to reach Green Deal objectives. Scientific literature indicates that to move future EU Common Agricultural Policy and other climate and rural policies towards a socially transformative, gender and ecologically-just direction, the push for gender equality will need to come from progressive farmers and civil society.