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Paper short abstract

This paper examines why current paradigms of technologies for food futures have not taken adequate account of the crucial roles that women play in providing food for their household and managing seeds in their community and the implications for gender equality in sustainable food systems.

Paper long abstract

This paper examines contending paradigms for examining food futures, and how they are impacted by the changing relationship between state policy and food production. Recent announcements indicate a shift in the focus of agricultural policy making institutions towards the relationship between agriculture and national security (UK Cabinet Office, 2025), and away from the established goals of reducing absolute hunger in the poorest countries. Such shifts move policy away from distributional concerns of increasing inequality in food security, and towards agricultural production using GM crops and new food technologies. This greater technological emphasis can easily lead to national heavy handedness, an approach which already has a history of overlooking smallholders to agricultural innovations. This top-down approach also has the adverse consequence of failing to recognise the important role played by women farmers, in using local materials and seeds to improve food availability for their families (Quisumbing and Doss, 2021). Indeed, the emphasis in low-income countries is on strengthening agricultural markets, adoption of new agricultural technologies and incorporation of private sector actors to ensure the incorporation of farmers into global agricultural supply chains, without explicit regard for gender equality (Vercillo et. al, 2023). The paper uses evidence from local food systems in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, to make the case that in the context of the current climate crisis, it is crucial that women’s contribution to local food circuits as well as their role as knowledge brokers is a central building block for creating more equitable and sustainable food futures.