Food Insecurity in the Agrarian Household: An Analysis of Gendered Identity, Conjugal Dynamics, and Coping in Northwestern Benin

Food insecurity represents an enduring challenge for subsistence farmers in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). While gender has been identified as an important determinant of food insecurity in other SSA contexts, this has not been a focus of research in Benin. This dissertation examines how gender shapes food insecurity within the agrarian household by examining the household as a place where the broader structural forces that influence food insecurity and gender play out at a micro-level. I take a mixed-methods approach, drawing on community-level focus groups (n=12), semi-structured interviews (n=40), and a quantitative survey (n=600). The findings reveal that while food insecurity in the region is widespread, its effects are felt differently by men and women. Gendered sociocultural norms that place men as household breadwinners mean that men tend to be ‘blamed’ for food insecurity, while women feel frustrated with their husband’s perceived failure to fulfill their responsibilities. Sociocultural norms dictate what is considered men’s and women’s work, which results in a growing burden of labour for women in the form of survival-driven income generating activities. As livelihoods are reshaped, women are contesting societal norms that dictate the agreed upon division of labour, but in so doing threaten men’s masculinity and reinforce their shame with respect to food provisioning. In order to manage the stress and hunger which accompany food insecurity, gendered drinking patterns have emerged, wherein men’s alcohol misuse has become a problem. This has further undermined food security by interfering with farm work and diverting household resources. Conjugal tensions and arguments arise as a result and are exacerbated by drunkenness, often devolving into violence. Concomitantly, this results in intimate partner violence (IPV) as a gendered consequence of food insecurity, findings that are confirmed in the quantitative analysis of the regional survey data. Taken together, this research illustrates how gender shapes men’s and women’s experiences of food insecurity within the household, playing into the division of household responsibilities and challenging existing gender norms. Food insecurity is revealed as an important site for the renegotiation of gender roles within the agrarian household, but one that has particularly devastating consequences for women

“Dear Brother Farmer”: Gender-Responsive Digital Extension in Tunisia during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Providing farmers with essential agricultural information and training in the era of COVID-19 has been a challenge that has prompted a renewed interest in digital extension services. There is a distinct gender gap, however, between men’s and women’s access to, use of, and ability to benefit from information and communication technologies (ICTs). The overall purpose of this research is to examine how digital extension can address gender inequality in rural areas in the context of the COVID-19 crisis by designing and evaluating the gendered impacts of a digital extension intervention delivered to 624 farmers (363 men and 261 women) (which included phone distribution, radio and SMS messages, and sharing of information prompts) in northern Tunisia. In order to assess the effectiveness of gender-responsive digital extension that targets husband and wife pairs, as opposed to only men, we employed logistic regression and descriptive statistics to analyze a sample of 242 farmers (141 women and 141 men). We find that phone ownership facilitated women’s access to their social network, as well as agricultural information and services, ultimately improving their participation in household decision making and agricultural production. We find that gender-responsive digital extension is effective for men and especially women in terms of usefulness, learning, and adoption. We identified education level and cooperative membership as important factors that determine the impact of digital extension services on farmers and demonstrate the positive impact of radio programming. We recommend strengthening phone access for women, targeting information (including through non-written ways) to both husbands and wives, using sharing prompts, and more rigorous extension for knowledge-intensive topics such as conservation agriculture and rural collectives

“Dear brother farmer”: Gender, agriculture and digital extension in rural Tunisia during the COVID-19 pandemic

Providing farmers with essential agricultural information and training in the era of COVID-19 has been a challenge that has prompted a renewed interest in digital extension services. There is a distinct gender gap, however, between men’s and women’s access to, use of, and ability to benefit from information and communication technologies (ICTs). The overall purpose of this research is to examine how digital extension can address gender inequality in rural areas in the context of the COVID-19 crisis by designing and evaluating the gendered impacts of a digital extension intervention delivered to 624 farmers (363 men and 261 women) (which included phone distribution, radio and SMS messages, and sharing of information prompts) in northern Tunisia. In order to assess the effectiveness of gender-responsive digital extension that targets husband and wife pairs, as opposed to only men, we employed logistic regression and descriptive statistics to analyze a sample of 242 farmers (141 women and 141 men). We find that phone ownership facilitated women’s access to their social network, as well as agricultural information and services, ultimately improving their participation in household decision making and agricultural production. We find that gender-responsive digital extension is effective for men and especially women in terms of usefulness, learning, and adoption. We identified education level and cooperative membership as important factors that determine the impact of digital extension services on farmers and demonstrate the positive impact of radio programming. We recommend strengthening phone access for women, targeting information (including through non-written ways) to both husbands and wives, using sharing prompts, and more rigorous extension for knowledge-intensive topics such as conservation agriculture and rural collectives

Association between poor food production and intimate partner violence among smallholder farmers in northwestern Benin

Rates of intimate partner violence (IPV) remain concerningly high in Benin, particularly in the predominantly rural region of Atacora in the northwest. In the context of increasing food insecurity, concerns have been raised regarding the role that lack of food in the household may be playing in increasing the rate of IPV in this context. This study aims to investigate the association between household food production and IPV in Atacora, Benin. Using a social ecological model and drawing from family stress theory, we analysed data from a cross-sectional survey of 300 women in the study region. Logistic regression and sequential modelling results show that after controlling for individual, household and community level factors, insufficient food production is positively associated with women’s likelihood of experiencing physical (adjusted OR=6.50 [2.48, 17.04], p < .01) and sexual violence (adjusted OR=4.49 [1.68, 11.99], p < .01). We conclude that production-oriented interventions in rural farming communities may reduce women’s risk of IPV by increasing households’ access to food and reducing family stress. Long term interventions would do well to focus on improving women’s access to land and building capacity in the management of marital conflict without violence