Sustainable Agriculture and Gender Equality in Japan and Germany | [間：AI DA]: supporting international carrier development of early career researchers (ECRs)

Host Researcher in Germany:

Ms. Janna Luisa Pieper, PhD Student and research assistant, Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development, Division of Rural Sociology, Georg-August-University Göttingen

Activity

Unable to travel due to COVID-19 restrictions

Aims:

Learning analytic volcanic plume simulation model
Building an international research corporation network with Hamburg University

Motivation for application

To understand how women farmers are contributing to sustainable food systems

My research focuses on new entry women farmers and their engagement with sustainable food systems. Due to hyper-urban concentration and rural de-population, the average age of farmers is increasing and many rural areas struggle to attract new farmers. However, there is small growing number of women farmers who are practicing sustainable agriculture in Japan and Germany. I applied for AI DA to expand the scope of my study to compare women farmer livelihoods in Japan and Germany to understand how women farmers are contributing to sustainable food systems.

Results

Exchanging field notes and analysis on research subjects in Japan and Germany

Due to travel restrictions, I was not able to conduct fieldwork in Germany from Jan 2021-March 2022. Instead, my research colleague in Germany and I carried out fieldwork in our respective countries and shared our fieldnotes, interview recordings, and findings.

Sharing tips and strategizes on navigating fieldwork during the COVID-19 travel restrictions

We shared updates on each other’s country travel policies and met regularly to strategize how to move forward with data collection. We shared advice on how to connect with farmers when traveling to rural areas was restricted.

Outlook

Because my colleague in Germany and I held virtual meetings every month to share progress and exchange data analysis on women farmers, we were able to collaborate on many activities. We will be presenting our findings at an international conference in July 2022. We are also co-authoring a peer review article to submit to a journal related to sustainable production and consumption. I gained a great colleague and friend who I hope to keep collaborating with in the future, especially when we can travel more freely.