women farmers are central in producing food for their families and in sustaining the ecologies that enable this but must often do so under increasingly constrained conditions these perspectives distract attention from and thus support the continuation of unsustainable consumption and production patterns and inequities that are actually far more significant in producing environmental problems than are sheer numbers of people they are underpinned by alternative visions and values that emphasize not just profit and growth but the importance of sustainability gender equality inclusivity and social justice typically they involve different combinations of public private and civil society institutions and require strong state action