Gender conversations and capacity for plant health
More than 500 people participated in a series of CGIAR webinars on plant health, all of which recognized the foundational importance of gender in shaping plant health issues and responses.
|
|
|
Top 10 reads on gender and nutrition
The body of high-quality literature on gender and nutrition has been steadily growing over the past decades, and here are 10 significant papers that provide a road map of this evolution.
|
|
|
Women hold the seeds of a stronger food system for Peru
As the gatekeepers to family nutrition and the guardians of crop diversity, women play a defining yet underappreciated role in Peru’s food system.
|
|
|
6 aquatic food system innovations transforming women’s livelihoods
World Food Prize winner Dr. Shakuntala Thilsted shares her experience developing nutrition-sensitive innovations that are transforming women’s lives.
|
|
|
Cultivating Equality Conference
Call for contributions now open
The call for contributions for Cultivating Equality: Advancing Gender Research in Agriculture and Food Systems is now open, until June 4, 2021.
The conference will be held virtually on October 12–15, 2021, and is co-hosted by the CGIAR GENDER Platform and Wageningen University & Research as EU Gender-SMART partner. The event will actively engage researchers, students and other actors to move forward the agenda of gender research in agriculture and food systems.
|
|
|
Gender research news from across CGIAR
|
|
Gender equality for a healthy world
|
|
Women have a 13 percent higher risk of suffering from moderate or severe food insecurity than men; education, access to finance and more can help close the gap and improve food systems. In fact, the links between women, their roles and status, and nutrition are plentiful.
In India, women have started small vegetable gardens, improving household nutrition and incomes, while in Niger, access to health and fertility resources improve women’s nutritional health. In Bangladesh, gill nets increase fisherwomen’s self-sufficiency and boost household nutrition amid COVID-19, and, unexpectedly, scientists found that some Bangladeshi women’s dietary diversity increased during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Finding opportunities for women’s equitable involvement in aquaculture can help create a healthier world, and, in fact, human, environmental and animal health is improved when decisions include all perspectives. For example, targeting women in training and information campaigns could help control Rift Valley fever, an endemic zoonotic disease in Uganda. In Ethiopia, women are already making a difference on the front line of dangerous zoonotic disease spread.
Intimate partner violence is not only a risk to women's own health, but women experiencing physical intimate partner violence are also less likely to use maternal health services. A gender-transformative intervention, called Unite for a Better Life, can help prevent intimate partner violence, as observed in Ethiopian communities.
|
|
Designing crops and technologies
|
|
Using gender-responsive tools and data can ensure that new crop varieties are more widely used and have greater impact. Women and men farmers perceive new crops differently. The G+ Tools have helped facilitate discussions with crop breeders and economists on gender, including the potential for harmful and beneficial effects of traits on women and men.
Having more women in plant breeding and science might bring about a special type of nurturing, just as engaging more women experts and extension workers in the plant health sector can help develop innovations that are acceptable to women and men.
A new paper, based on cases from sub-Saharan Africa, explores women and men’s different choices to adopt crop varieties and whether such choices are empowering. In Papua New Guinea, one study on differences in crop choices showed that most women were motivated by marketing; more men favored tradition or status concerns. In Niger, women food processors have evaluated cassava varieties based on their suitability for different food products.
Looking at seed systems in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, researchers found that men farmers rely more on formal agricultural networks and have better access to improved seeds than women. About 1,000 women farmers in Mali identified lack of access to seeds, markets and fertilizers as constraints to their agricultural productivity. A recently launched seed systems toolbox offers 11 tools to diagnose, evaluate and improve seed systems.
Turning to agricultural mechanization, a new study in Tanzania indicated that gender norms prevent women from using machines to shell maize. On the other hand, simple technologies, such as soil probes to detect water and salinity levels, have saved time, boosted income and reduced household conflicts in Zimbabwe.
|
|
Governing land and landscapes
|
|
Advancing women’s land rights is important, but there is no consensus on which rights should be monitored and reported. A recent paper implies that because different rights to land—ownership, use, control and more—are held by different people, current ownership statistics may not correctly reflect women’s land rights. Fortunately, a new type of survey is giving voice to women, letting them share their perceptions of their property rights.
In Egypt, although rural women are often marginalized from land ownership, the situation might not be as dire as often believed. In the Amazon, geospatial services could help women—and men—monitor their territories and address deforestation, biodiversity loss and climate change.
A new publication identifies activities, methods and approaches that can help ensure equal opportunities for women and men to tackle environmental challenges, while a recently published guide explains how to include women, Indigenous Peoples and other under-represented groups in multi-stakeholder forums, such as forest user groups. Interestingly, reflecting on masculinities in forests have led researchers to conclude that men need to be part of the equation for constraining gender norms to change.
|
|
Understanding gender under climate change
|
|
New research shows that harmful gender assumptions hold back climate action. Policy and program analyses can be a critical entry point for engaging stakeholders in the processes that focus on integrating gender in climate policies, and a recently developed road map outlines how to integrate gender equality in agriculture under climate change in Central America.
In addition, a recent systematic literature search has identified the connections, trends and pathways between climate change, inequity and nutrition outcomes. For example, despite similar climate change perceptions, choice of adaptation strategies differs significantly between women and men cowpea growers in Mali.
Gaps exist in the mainstreaming of gender and nutrition in climate change, food and nutrition-related policy documents. This despite the fact that tackling climate change impacts requires gender-responsive finance interventions, especially for women who are hit the hardest.
|
|
Creating opportunities in business, markets and value chains
|
|
Far from turning away from agriculture, many young women–and men–are tied to farming jobs and will therefore be central to driving transformation of Africa’s food systems. In Tanzania, for example, more women and youth are getting into seed production enterprises, strengthening their livelihoods.
Women in Bangladesh have started successful businesses using power-tiller-operated seeders to sow wheat, mungbean and more. In India’s state of Odisha, maize farming and quality grain training is lifting up the socioeconomic status of women, just as two women-led food processing units have opened elsewhere in India. Still, many Indian women hold informal jobs and are poorly captured in labor statistics, making it complicated to close the gender gap in the country’s workforce.
A new publication provides recommendations and guidance for integrating gendered perspectives into fruit value chains, particularly in Central America’s Gulf of Fonseca, and a recently published book (in Chapter 7) outlines how mobile video and banking technologies can boost women’s employment in fishing communities.
|
|
Changing norms and institutions
|
|
Gender-transformative approaches engage both women and men in tackling the root causes of gender inequalities, such as was the case in a small-scale capture fisheries project in Zambia, which significantly advanced gender equality. Using gender-transformative approaches in ocean governance promotes a sustainable and just ocean economy, just as social principles can set the path toward gender equity and inclusion in small-scale fisheries.
In Kenya, increased dairy intensification and informal market use is challenging existing gender norms, resulting in both wins and dangers for women. Women in Mali participate in many kinds of civil society organizations, but they still lack political influence. A new interview guide brings spouses together to describe the process and rationale they use to make different kinds of decisions within their household.
Finally, a study of how outmigration of men affects women’s roles in drylands revealed that women are carrying out more labor but earn less, making them susceptible to marginalization. In rural Kenya, women report that men’s outmigration implies greater opportunities in agriculture, but also impede the women from exploring opportunities outside of farming.
|
|
Upcoming events
East Africa Rice Conference (EARC), May 18-20
Gendered livelihood dynamics in rice-based food systems
Wednesday, May 19, 2021, 13:30-15:00 East Africa Time (GMT+3)
Jobs and employment opportunities in the rice sector: Opportunities for entrepreneurship for youth
Wednesday, May 19, 2021, 15:00-16:30 East Africa Time (GMT+3)
Drop-in session: Gender Transformative Approaches for Food Security and Nutrition, May 27
Thursday, May 27, 2021, 15:00-16:00 EAT
Join Hajnalka Petrics, of the Joint Programme on Gender Transformative Approaches for Food Security and Nutrition (JP GTA), as she shares updates on the program's progress and plans.
Register here.
Webinar: The Future of Food, Nutrition and Health, July 7
More information to follow here.
|
|
Job news
Announcement
Els Lecoutere has joined the CGIAR GENDER Platform as its Science Officer. In this role, she supports the Platform in strategically communicating high-quality evidence and setting high standards for gender research. Read more.
Vacancy
The KIT Royal Tropical Institute in Amsterdam is currently seeking candidates for the position of Senior Advisor Gender to strengthen its gender team. Closing date: May 20, 2021. Read more.
|
|
Follow the conversation on Facebook and via @CGIARgender and #GenderInAg.
Sign up for our online discussion group to participate in exchanges about GENDER and related resources and opportunities.
|
|
|
Thank you
Thank you to CGIAR research centers that contributed to this newsletter: Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), International Potato Center (CIP), International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), World Agroforestry (ICRAF), WorldFish. Also to the CGIAR Research Programs on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH); Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS); FISH; Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA); Livestock; Maize; Policies, Institutions and Markets (PIM); Roots, Tubers and Bananas (RTB) as well as Excellence in Breeding (EIB).
Photo credits from the top: Krishnasis Ghosh/Bioversity International; CIP; Sara Fajardo/CIP; Worldfish; WorldFish; Milo Mitchell/IFPRI; SERVIR/Amazonia; Icaro Cooke Vieira/CIFOR; CIMMYT; Habibul Haque/WorldFish.
|
|
|
|
