Women’s diversified knowledge, seeds, and access to innovations

Women farmers have a detailed knowledge of the ecosystems in which they live. They also have wide knowledge of cultivated plants, the winnowing of grain, and the storage and use of the products that they harvest, sometimes with men but often alone. Their logics of action take into account the constraints of their environment—agronomic, climatic, geographical, sometimes security-related—and play with the constraint of available working time. Female agricultural intelligence is particularly visible in activities aimed at preserving the seed capital. Moreover, this group is knowledgeable about maintaining the reproduction cycle of plant and animal varieties.