Welcome to Talamh Beo

info@talamhbeo.ie

Talamh Beo Women

Agroecological Women Claiming Their Space

Our Focus Points

  • Bringing Feminism into Agriculture, Policy & Programmes
  • Bringing our Farming into Balance

Talamh Beo Women is a space where members envision what gender equality looks like in agriculture and how we go about guaranteeing this right for women and all vulnerable farm and rural dwellers.

We identify places and spaces where inequality prevents women and others from realising their true potential, especially when it comes to bringing their perspective and experience to the discussion, design and implementation of all things food, farming and rural living. We will work with organisations and government to replace this inequality with inclusive and participatory policies and practices.
We lead by example. Talamh Beo’s organisational structure is 50/50 gender balanced, as is participation in our Soil Biodiversity EIP. 

Women’s representation is present at all levels in the organisation, and we examine all our policies and practices through a gender lens to ensure the content is gender responsive and aimed at guaranteeing gender equality.

As we put our EIP project and other programs and schemes under a gender mainstreaming lens, we need to understand what brings women into the field and what larger issues frame this context. We carried our research on gender mainstreaming in agriculture, and you can read the results of our research project here.

If you are a member and would like to join this group about guaranteeing gender equality in agriculture, click here and leave us your details.

Gender equality is a human right we should be guaranteeing, not something we are aspiring to deliver

Talamh Beo Supports Gender Mainstreaming & Women in Agriculture 

Talamh Beo supports:

  • Challenging patriarchal model of extraction in conventional farming
  • Highlighting the hidden labour of women on farms
  • Women in leadership and farm representation
  • Gender mainstreaming in all sectors and levels of agriculture – ensuring gender impacts are considered when preparing policy, programme and scheme initiatives
  • Championing equal access to resources for women, especially in the next CAP
  • Ensuring women farmers have equal access to land, security of tenure and the right to use their land without disturbance

Specific actions we will pursue as outlined in our CAP submission:

  • Our CAP recommendation for women farming alone and all vulnerable categories of farmers farming on their own to receive the average entitlement value for their Pillar 1 payments. This includes single parents, widows and widowers, spinsters and bachelors and people with disabilities farming and living on their own.
  • Our CAP recommendation that Women farmers must have equal access to CAP resources. ‘Vulnerable’ women (single women, single parents, widows, spinsters, disabilities) are unable to access credit and thus not able to participate in TAMS and other schemes where you have to pay first and claim back later. Access to credit / microcredit needs to be addressed.

We want to see gender mainstreaming across the agricultural sector. It’s time to actively open the taps to let in the contribution that women have to make. Specifically, we want to see results regarding:

  • Our right to representation of women on all things related to food, farming and rural living.
  • Our right to participation in ensuring gender responsive content that delivers equality in all phases of the policymaking and delivery processes.
  • Women farmers must have equal access to land and the right to use their land without disturbance enforced.
  • Many women and men living and farming on their own are not able to engage and participate in determining their future and livelihoods, as they are occupied parenting / caring. Social inclusion schemes must be put in place to allow all the opportunity to engage and contribute to regenerating our agricultural sector.
  • Housing is as much a problem on farms as it is everywhere else. Many families living on land do so in inadequate housing or with inadequate sanitation and services. We need new thinking and solutions to ensure all people have safe, secure, warm and dry homes.

Talamh Beo is a member of La Via Campesina – the international peasants’ movement.

A peasant farmer is defined as a farmer who farms with family labour

La Via Campesina recognises the role of women in agricultural movements:

“The work, perspectives, analysis, energy, leadership and presence of women in La Via Campesina has fundamentally shaped and strengthened our movement”

Read more on the importance of the role of women at La Via Campesina

Women in Agriculture News

Bridget Murphy in That's Farming Interview

“That’s Farming speaks to Sligo farmer, Bridget Murphy, in this week’s Women in Ag segment. We discuss her move from South Africa to the family farm in Ireland. Also, we examine an issue that is close to her heart – gender equality in all spheres of agriculture. And she is not afraid to speak her mind.”  

 –Dirk De Vynck, That’s Farming, 14.01.2022  Click here to read

Gender Mainstreaming Research Results

We surveyed women participating in the Talamh Beo Soil Biodiversity EIP and from the Women’s Group about gender mainstreaming in the project and gender issues in agriculture more broadly to get a better understanding of the experiences of women in this sector from an Irish context. This is important because women make up a significant proportion of the agricultural workforce as well as owning a significant percentage of farms, yet they are notably underrepresented in representation, planning and decision-making roles that affect them directly.

Want to join our movement? Become a member!

Membership Options

You can show your support for Talamh Beo in many ways. We appreciate social media followers, likes & shares, website visits, newsletter signups and donations. Our reach and proven following is important to lend weight to our voice in discussions regarding Ireland’s agriculture and food policies. If you want to add your voice to our discussions and policy making, or support us in a more practical way which will allow us to continue our work, we would ask that you consider becoming a member of Talamh Beo and making a small financial contribution to our efforts. 

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