Dr Sonia Akter
Associate Professor, Crawford School of Public Policy Resources, Environment and Development, ANU
Dr Sonia Akter joined the Crawford School of Public Policy as Senior Lecturer in January 2023. Her research is situated on the nexus of agriculture, environment and development in the Asia-Pacific region. She has worked extensively on agriculture and food policy, natural disasters and women’s empowerment in South and Southeast Asia.
Sonia has published single and co-authored articles in top journals in the field of environment and development studies and is a Senior Editor for the journal Food Security and Associate Editor for the Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics (AJARE).
Sonia graduated with a PhD in Environmental Management and Development from the Australian National University in 2010 and holds a MS degree in Economics from York University, Toronto, Canada. Prior to joining the Crawford School of Public Policy in 2023, she was Assistant Professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore (2015-2022). She was Scientist at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) (2014-2015) and Senior Researcher at Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research-UFZ, Leipzig, Germany (2011-2013). She has served in numerous advisory roles and expert panels including the Australian Center for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank and the Ministry of Environment and Water Resources, Singapore where she contributed broad-ranging methodological and strategic insights around valuation of water resource, strengthening women’s participation in agricultural programs and designing instruments for capturing the gender differentiated impact of natural disasters.
ABSTRACT
Cultivating Resilience: Feminization as a Pathway to Climate Adaptation in Cambodia’s Agriculture
Climate change is intensifying the frequency and severity of climatic hazards, disrupting agricultural systems and reshaping rural livelihoods worldwide. In climate-vulnerable countries like Cambodia, these disruptions are also transforming gender roles within agriculture. While the feminization of agriculture—where women assume greater agricultural responsibilities as men transition to non-farm work—has been widely observed, less is known about whether this trend also extends to women’s involvement in farm-level decision-making. This case study examines the relationship between climate change adaptation, climatic hazards, and the multidimensional feminization of agriculture in Cambodia. Using nationally representative, sex-disaggregated data from the Cambodia Agriculture Survey (2019–2021), covering over 40,000 households, we analyse shifts in women’s roles as unpaid family labourers, hired workers, and decision-makers in agricultural production. Our findings show a significant increase in women’s participation in all aspects of agriculture during the study period. Feminization was more pronounced in female-headed households, those heavily dependent on agriculture for income, and those exposed to climatic shocks—especially droughts and floods. We find that crop and livelihood diversification, key household adaptation strategies, are strongly associated with increased female labour and decision-making roles. By contrast, we find little evidence that male outmigration or non-climatic hazards (e.g., pests) are major drivers of feminization in this context. These results highlight the need for gender-responsive agricultural and climate adaptation policies. In particular, agricultural extension programs should actively support women’s access to climate-smart technologies, training, and resources—especially in areas most affected by climate change—so that women’s growing role in agriculture translates into greater resilience and equity rather than deepening the burdens of climate stress.