Doctoral Dissertation Research: Commercial Urban Agriculture in Gaborone, Batswana: Exploring the Effects of Gender on Productivity

该研究将提供对博茨瓦纳哈博罗内商业城市农业的性别和整体理解，以评估这种系统在解决城市粮食安全方面的潜力。 分析将把微观层面的性别动态与宏观层面的结构联系起来，共同决定谁在生产、在哪里生产以及能够生产什么。 过去的研究表明，妇女在城市务农的经历与男子不同。 然而，关于性别关系如何影响商业化城市农业系统生产力的具体工作却很少。 这项研究将探讨权力的性别关系如何界定城市中资源、空间和环境的获取，进而影响生产力水平。 这项研究将使用定量方法来确定性别与商业化城市农业生产力之间的统计联系，并主要使用定性方法来说明其因果关系。 它将确定那些促进和/或阻碍城市农业企业的有效性和效率的因素。 将使用一个社会生态抽样框架，从产量、经济价值和营养成分等方面记录男性和女性主导的城市农业系统的总体生产力水平。 预计研究将显示不同水平的生产力，以及作物和牲畜品种的质量和组成，沿着性别线，由于获得资源的机会不同，空间分布，城市农业地块的生态条件。该研究将有助于通过追求城市形态的理论重新概念化来促进学术辩论，环境相互作用，并在微观层面的生产过程和宏观层面的结构之间建立明确的联系。 它将阐述一个明确的地理方法，将社会，空间和生态因素作为农业生产力的基础。 该研究将采用比以往城市农业领域研究更精细的数据分类，以了解男子和妇女在城市中的耕作方式和原因以及这对城市粮食生产的影响。 这项研究还将有助于政策的制定。 博茨瓦纳为城市农业研究提供了一个及时的案例研究，因为政府正在有意识地将商业农业纳入其国家粮食安全战略和发展计划。 城市农业被视为提高非洲城市优质食品的丰富性、规律性和可负担性的一种手段。 为此，研究将确定博茨瓦纳城市农业政策制定和实施的关键因素和考虑因素。 作为博士论文研究改进奖，该奖项还将提供支持，使有前途的学生建立一个强大的独立的研究生涯。

The research will provide a gendered and holistic understanding of commercial urban agriculture in Gaborone, Botswana, in order to assess the potential of such systems in addressing urban food security. Analysis will link micro-level gender dynamics with macro-level structures that together shape who produces, where they produce and what they are able to produce. Past research suggests that women have different experiences with farming in cities than men. Yet little work has been done on specifically how gender relations influence the productivity of commercial urban agriculture systems. The research will investigate how gender relations of power delineate access to resources, spaces and environments in the city, and in turn influence levels of productivity. The research will use quantitative methods to determine the statistical associations between gender and commercial urban agricultural productivity, and primarily qualitative methods to illuminate their causal links. It will identify those factors that facilitate and/or hinder the effectiveness and efficiency of agricultural enterprises in the city. An socio-ecological sampling framework will be used to document the general levels of productivity found on male- and female-led urban agriculture systems in terms of yields, economic value and nutritional content. It is expected that the research will demonstrate varying levels of productivity, as well as quality and composition of crop and livestock species, along gender lines on account of differential access to resources, spatial distribution, and ecological conditions on urban agriculture plots.The research will contribute to academic debate by pursing a theoretical re-conceptualization of urban form to include human-environment interactions and draw explicit links between micro-level production processes and macro-level structures. It will elaborate an explicitly geographical approach that unites social, spatial, and ecological factors as the bases of agricultural productivity. The research will employ a finer disaggregation of data than previous studies in the field of urban agriculture to understand how and why men and women farm differently in cities and the implications of this for urban food production. The research will also contribute to policy formulation. Botswana presents a timely case study for research on urban agriculture for the government is consciously attempting to integrate commercial farming into its national food security strategy and development plans. Urban agriculture is viewed as a means of enhancing the abundance, regularity and affordability of good quality food in African cities. To this end, the research will identify key factors and considerations for the development and implementation of an urban agriculture policy for Botswana. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award also will provide support to enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career.