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This article analyzes the little understood gendered relations and issues related to women's empowerment in Colombian family coffee farms. We used multiple qualitative methods of inquiry to assess women coffee producers' empowerment and agency within both economic and political spheres. Despite their traditional participation in domestic work and their subordinate position in coffee production, we demonstrate that a significant percentage of women coffee producers have been empowered through participation in state-funded coffee renovation and specialty coffee certification programs.
Key words: coffee, empowerment, women's agency, gender, agriculture, Colombia
Introduction
Coffee remains one of the main tradable goods in Latin America and historically has played an important role in the development of many countries in the region, including Colombia where it has shaped the economic, social, and cultural configuration of the country in critical ways. Although coffee went from occupying 60 percent of total exports in the 1970s to only 5 percent in the last decade (as oil, coal, gold, and other minerals began to play a leading role in exports), 26 percent of agricultural employment and 33 percent of the rural population still depend on this crop for survival (Bernal 2016).
Coffee production in Colombia, as is the case in most Latin American countries, relies on small-scale coffee producers. Ninety-six percent of the members of the National Federation of Coffee Growers (FNC) in Colombia belong to "la familia cafetera" (the coffee producing-family), cultivating fewer than five hectares and depending heavily on family labor. Traditionally, the division of labor in the coffee producing households was structured around complementarity of roles (between men and women), concealing gender power dynamics, but nonetheless serving to consolidate a model of family and agricultural production in rural regions.
Changes in international markets, especially with the emergence of certification processes related to the production of specialty coffees, and transformations in the political, social, and cultural climate of the Colombian countryside, have recently made visible the work and the participation of women in coffee production. This increased visibility of women does not focus so much on their traditional "complementary" work in the coffee farm unit but more on the recognition of women as producers and owners of coffee, which gives them full economic and political rights within the industry.
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