Innovations in farm enterprise organization provide important opportunities for sustainable rural livelihoods and enhanced quality of life. However, field research in Saskatchewan suggests that existing cooperative models of multi-family farming do not necessarily provide a context for full and equitable participation by women. This comparative, feminist research reveals that women from cooperative group farms are generally as marginalized as their counterparts on conventional family farms. What women do, how they see themselves, and how others see them, reflect a dynamic and complex interplay among the social relations of production, reproduction, and consumption. Farm business organization is only one parameter in the context of patriarchal kin, community, and commercial relations. Thus, changing farm organizational structure alone is not sufficient to overcome structural, social, and cultural inequities in the rural landscape.
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