Rita Calvário at the 9th Annual Meeting of Political Economy

Rita Calvário, researcher at DINÂMIA’CET-Iscte, will join the 9th Annual Meeting of Political Economy, as guest speaker, within the framework of the SWIFT - Supporting Women-led Innovation in Farming Territories research project.

The event will be hosted by the Institute of Sociology - University of Porto and Católica Porto Business School, from 29 to 31 January 2026.

SWIFT, which stands for Supporting Women-Led Innovations in Farming and Rural Territories, is a 4 year funded Horizon Europe project set up with the purpose to advance the position of women and LGBTQI+ persons in farming, and to investigate how agroecological processes can promote gender equality.

Despite the crucial contributions of women to European agriculture, they remain discriminated against in diverse ways. Their exclusion from social security schemes and low levels of female farm ownership are indicative of structural inequalities. The barriers to gender equality in European agriculture are socio-cultural, economic and political, including policies that frame food as a commodity and exclude the reproductive dimensions of farming. To advance gender equality, the EU-funded SWIFT project will provide new insights and co-create novel approaches with 21 agricultural women-led innovations in 12 countries distributed across Europe, as well as 4 in Brazil and the USA. SWIFT will provide theoretical and practical tools, such as gender-responsive budgeting and feminist farm viability indicators, to enable a change towards more just, effective and diversified farming.

More info here