15 October 2008: The newly released Gender in Agriculture Sourcebook investigates the situation of women in the rural workforce and how some of the challenges they face can be overcome. Developed in cooperation between the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the World Bank, the sourcebook is intended to be used both as a reference and as a tool book for agricultural development. It also addresses cross-cutting issues, including gender dimensions of climate change and bioenergy.

On climate change mitigation, the book recommends, among other actions: analyzing women’s and men’s energy and transport use, as well as other consumption patterns impacting climate; introducing formal and informal education about environmental impacts of lifestyles; enhancing women’s and men’s mitigation capacity; increasing access to payments for environmental services; and strengthening rural institutions’ capacities for disaster risk reduction.
On gender and bioenergy, the book includes a number of guidelines and recommendations, such as: promoting multiple strategies for energy supply to the rural poor, including more efficient and sustainable use of traditional biomass and enabling poor women and men to switch to modern fuels and technologies; reducing harmful emissions of traditional fuel use; including women and men in medium- or large-scale biofuel crop production; and creating local groups and cooperatives for bioenergy production and use. [FAO Press Release] [The Sourcebook]