In August 2023, the Polish Sustainable Agriculture and Food Association has started to work together with the Institute of Rural and Agricultural Development of the Polish Academy of Sciences. The organisations will undertake joint activities for the development and promotion of sustainable agriculture and food, including the implementation of the Agro Woman initiative.
In Poland, nearly one in three farms are run by women. In the EU agriculture, they make up almost 50% of the workforce and have been inextricably linked to farm operations in Poland and Europe for centuries. Now, they have a unique opportunity to support the changes we want to see in our sector and to help each other succeed now and in the future. The Agro Woman initiative is a platform to support entrepreneurship, promote the image, role and leadership of women in farms, organisations and businesses and raise awareness of the positive impact of sustainability in agriculture and food production.
Our Institute has research competence and a well-established scientific position in social research on rural development. We consider the countryside in its broadest sense as a living environment, a human activity and a subject of policy and an important fragment of space. We are actively involved in promoting the ideas and practices of sustainable agriculture and food, and in particular in developing tools and programmes to support rural women.
– says Monika Stanny, Director of the Institute of Rural and Agricultural Development at the Polish Academy of Sciences.
The Institute has already hosted the Agro Woman meeting in June 2023 – at that meeting, the participants discussed the scale of rural diversity in Poland and the needs of women living in rural areas. The representatives of the Polish Academy of Sciences’ IRWiR prepared two talks: “How Diverse (and Why) are Rural Areas in Poland?” and “Traditional or Modern? What Do Women Living in Rural Areas Expect?”.
We want the discussion on the role of women and sustainability in the agri-food sector to be as broad as possible. It also should include different perspectives and experiences. I am delighted that our initiative has gained such a recognised patron in the research and scientific world as the Institute of Rural and Agricultural Development of the Polish Academy of Science.
– says Małgorzata Bojańczyk, Director of the Polish Sustainable Agriculture and Food Association.
For 50 years, the Institute of Rural and Agricultural Development of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IRWiR PAN), as a scientific, opinion-forming and advisory unit, has been conducting interdisciplinary basic research as a prerequisite for expert work. It is the leading research facility in the country, dedicated to identifying and explaining development mechanisms and their effects on the changing role of the countryside and agriculture in the social, economic and cultural life of the country. The Institute brings together specialists from various disciplines: economics, sociology, demography, ethnography, education or geography. It is an A-category scientific unit.
The Polish Sustainable Agriculture and Food Association is a non-commercial initiative of a group of businesses and individuals representing various branches of the food chain. The Association undertakes a range of activities to promote, educate and cooperate in the area of sustainable agriculture and food in Poland.