ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the creative tactics employed by dairy producers and women cheese makers to adapt to climate change and growing water scarcity in Rayon, a small community in Sonora, Mexico. Agriculture and water-related policies and programs in Sonora, focus on irrigated fodder production for livestock rearing to the neglect of rain-fed lands outside of cultivated areas used for grazing animals. Women in Rayon have adapted through various means, such as experimentation with the sources of inputs, the expansion of the types and volumes of products made, and the development of creative and modernized marketing. These types of policies and programs are also dedicated to crop and livestock production to a greater degree than to the processing stages in agricultural production. A feminist political ecology approach focuses on gendered environmental knowledge also guides attention to the inter-generational sharing of women's ecological knowledge, although currently there is insufficient attention in feminist political ecology research on this topic of knowledge transfer.
