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Abstract Gender analyses of farming have become well established in rural sociological literature. In recent years, however, increasing attention has been given to the discursive processes influencing gender relations and identities. In the current paper I continue this trend by exploring how a range of key agriculture‐related masculinities are constructed and articulated in Australia and New Zealand. First, a conceptual discussion identifies the need to consider discourse and creation of knowledge and truths about masculinity. An outline of the research is provided. Then I report on two broad fields in which masculinity is constructed, namely the farm arena and industry politics. Finally, I make closing comments in relation to the possibility of alternative genderings of agriculture.

Abstract In recent years, women's contribution to farming has been increasingly recognized by academics, decision makers, and some sectors of the farming community. In contrast, women's activism in agricultural politics is less well accepted or understood. This paper investigates data from a number of farm activist groups operating on a variety of scales in Australia. The paper examines the ways in which farm women develop political agency and then mobilize across a number of "fields of action" to effect both personal and industry‐wide change.

The New Zealand organic industry has grown rapidly over the last ten years. While New Zealand did have a small organic agriculture social movement from the 1970s, the size and scope of the industry increased rapidly during the 1990s as a result of large export companies establishing organic product lines. This transformation, and the eventual resistance to corporate styles of organic exporting, provides a useful case study of the way in which organic standards are constructed, reconstructed and circulated. By using discourse analysis the processes by which ideas of 'organic' were formed in the 1980s and then solidified (and contested) in the 1990s can be explored and various consequences identified. Rather than displaying a linear logic, by which organic agriculture movements are seemingly inevitably commoditized and corporatized, the New Zealand case provides evidence of the peculiar nature of organic agriculture as a part of the standardizing global food system.

Based upon a detailed reading of various texts emanating from the Federated Farmers of New Zealand, this paper considers the ways in which this farm organization has acted as a conduit between farmers and broader economic, cultural and political institutions and structures influencing New Zealand agriculture. These texts portray the Federation as an articulate partner in wider constructions of a neo‐liberal discourse, which champions the market for its 'freedom' and 'efficiency' and denigrates the state for its 'distortions' and 'backwardness.' More generally, this reading shows how agriculture is a culturally constructed sector where influential political and economic philosophies can become naturalized and accepted as 'truth.'

Studies of education are an example of developments in feminist rural studies which move debates about gender and power beyond the now substantial discussions of farming. The work of Shortall (Sociologia ruralis 1996) has been crucial in reviewing current literatures on agriculture and education, and identifying some of the ways training perpetuates dominant processes of socialization which differentially shape men's and women's experiences. This paper contributes to these developments by proposing the need for a theoretically informed framework to guide feminist educational analyses. We argue that notions of gender and theoretically reflective action‐oriented methodologies need to be considered in establishing such analyses. We then discuss how concepts of seriality, discourse and agency provide broad tools which support an inquiry into the contexts, operation, participants and outcomes of agricultural training systems. These dimensions are integrated as a framework of study. We close by sketching out areas of possible further debate on the approach presented.