Strategies in increasing women’s participation in commodity value chain development: Experiences from IPMS

Gender roles and relationships play determining roles in the production and marketing of agricultural commodities. However, the introduction of new technologies and practices, through improved service provision and market oriented growth often either disregards the gender consequences or many benefits bypass women including business development services such as training and credit. In some cases, due to commercialization women are unable to find their power in or right to control over women’s commodities they had before. This has implications not only for equity, but also may be detrimental to the long-term sustainability of commercialization. Considering this Improving Productivity and Market Success (IPMS3) project employed different strategies and approaches across its Pilot Learning Woredas to reach out many women in commodity development as possible. Therefore this paper is presented the different strategies and approaches employed to reach out women in commodity development through increasing women accesses to technologies, resources and; providing the required skill and knowledge to women

Agência, género e desenvolvimento em Oromia, Etiópia

Este artigo defende que a revolução pós-colonial no conhecimento sobre género e relações de poder não atingiu o sector agrícola nem a literatura. Utilizando os dados de validação de um estudo de dados qualitativos medium-n em Amhara e Oromia, Etiópia, o artigo apresenta um estudo de caso sobre venda na exploração agrícola para mostrar como um modelo de família nuclear é moldado por relações de poder enraizadas no passado colonial e ainda reproduzidas no presente. Os homens etíopes não partilham os recursos igualmente com as suas esposas/família. Por isso, as mulheres precisam de “servir-se elas mesmas” da colheita armazenada para gerir as necessidades da família. O artigo mostra como os projetos de segurança alimentar, mesmo aqueles que visam reduzir as perdas pós-colheita, podem ser social e economicamente perturbadores.This paper argues that the postcolonial revolution in knowledge about gender and power relations has not touched the agricultural sector nor literature. Using the validation data from a medium-n qualitative data study in Amhara and Oromia, Ethiopia, the paper presents a case study on farm gate selling to show how a nuclear family model is shaped by power relations that are seeded in the colonial past and yet are reproduced in the present. Ethiopian men do not share resources equally with their wife/family. So, women need to ‘help themselves’ to the stored harvest to manage the household’s needs. The paper shows how food security projects, and even those that aim to reduce post-harvest loss can be socially and economically disruptive.publicad

Gender and innovation processes in integrated fish agri-food systems in Bangladesh and the Philippines: Insights from the CGIAR Research Program on FISH

This FISH report provides insights on the interactions between gender norms, agency, and innovation in fish agri-food systems

Opportunities for promoting gender equality in rural Ethiopia through the commercialization of agriculture

Rural women in Ethiopia represent a tremendous productive resource in the agricultural sector. They are major contributors to the agricultural workforce, either as family members or in their own right as women heading households. However, despite recent policy initiatives to strengthen the position of women in the agricultural sector, a mixture of economic constraints, cultural norms and practices continue to limit their contribution to household food security and, to a lesser extent, inhibits the commercialization of the sector. Gender roles and relationships influence the division of work, the use of resources, and the sharing of the benefits of production between women and men. In particular, the introduction of new technologies and practices, underpinned by improved service provision, often disregards the gendered-consequences of market-oriented growth and many benefits bypass women. Not only do these circumstances have implications for issues of equality but also may be detrimental to the long-term sustainability of development initiatives. Despite the crucial role of the agricultural sector in the Ethiopian economy, studies on gender aspects of agricultural commercialization are relatively scarce. The main purpose of this paper is to contribute to the knowledge base about implications of gender roles and responsibilities for the development of the agricultural sector. This paper discusses gender issues in the context of the Improving Productivity and Market Success (IPMS) of Ethiopian Farmers’ Project being implemented by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and the Ethiopian Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. The findings are based on qualitative studies undertaken by the IPMS gender research team and Research and Development Officers in 10 pilot learning woredas (PLWs) located in 4 regions of the country. The study had three objectives: to increase the understanding of the different roles of women and men in agricultural activities, marketing and decision making, and their share in the benefits; to identify potential barriers for women’s and men’s participation in market-led development initiatives and technology adoption; and to identify what actions may overcome some of these barriers

Gender norms and agricultural innovation: Insights from six villages in Bangladesh

The ability of development interventions to catalyse and support innovation for—and by— women and men is undermined by lack of specific understanding about how gender norms interact with gender relations and what this means for innovation. This is also the case for Bangladesh despite substantive research and development investments in the past decade that have placed emphasis on gender norms, particularly those inhibiting women and girl’s education, women and girl’s health, and women’s economic empowerment. This paper analyses how men and women in South West Bangladesh perceive gender norms to affect their ability to innovate, adopt, and benefit from new technologies in aquaculture, fisheries and agricultural systems. Our qualitative findings from six villages in 2014 confirm that the engagement of women and men smallholders with agricultural innovation and its opportunities is gender-differentiated. We explore further: how gender norms shape these differences; which gender norms are most significant in the given context, when and for whom; and, finally, when and how are some women and men able to innovate in the context of these norms. In doing so, we highlight how gender norms interact with gender relations and wider structural inequalities to constrain and/or enable innovation for different women and men. We conclude that technical organizations seeking to promote innovation need to go beyond itemizing gender ‘gaps’ to engage more closely with underlying gender norms and the way they influence various women’s, and men’s, motivations, spheres of innovation, and valuations of outcomes