A fair share of both burdens and benefits
If you come from a rural farming community in a developing country, the role you are expected to play in society and the opportunities open to you are dependent on who you are—and very often on your sex. When it comes to farming itself, men and women frequently grow different crops or raise different livestock, and often seek different goals from their labor.

Agricultural researchers and development agents need to take these differences into account in order to serve their "clients" effectively—they need to work for and with both men and women farmers. That is, they need to engage in gender-responsive participatory research—working with farmers as partners to effectively serve the most vulnerable rural families and communities by addressing the divergent needs of men and women. As an example, participatory plant breeding with a gender perspective enables men and women farmers to develop crop varieties that meet their specific requirements, thereby enhancing food security.

The third Millennium Development Goal, "promote gender equality and empower women", recognizes that globally women have been left behind in terms of opportunities and need to be empowered to fulfill their potential in society.

The World Bank recognizes that while "gender differences in rural farming households vary widely across cultures, … [women] play a critical role in food production, post-harvest activities, livestock care, and increasingly in cash cropping." Moreover", "they have chief responsibility for reproductive activities, that is, the bearing and rearing of children and maintenance of the household," over and above their farming activities. Meanwhile, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) notes that rural women farmers "often endure poor working conditions and receive limited recognition for their contributions."

Conventionally, agricultural research and extension services have broadly targeted men. Consequently, there is a marked difference in the benefit from research and extension services received by men and women in rural farming. "Sustainable agriculture, rural development and food security cannot be achieved through efforts that ignore or exclude more than half of the rural population—women" (FAO). The disparity has to end, and the gender gap has to be closed, if rural families are going to continue to be fed and achieve an acceptable level of well-being.