You are a small holder farmer in rural

Uganda.

It is Friday afternoon.

What has your day been like?

© Maria Jones, Uganda 2016

Grace5 children

• Up at 5 am• Takes care of Children• Takes care of goats• Works in the farm (all

before 10 am)• Fetches Water• Gathers Firewood• Cooks lunch by 1 pm• Brings water for the cattle• Grazes the cattle• Rests• Cooks dinner• Prays with the family• Has dinner• Cleans dishes• Goes to Bed by 10 pm

© Maria Jones, Uganda 2016

Peter7 children

• Up at 5 am• Works in the farm

before 10 am• Grazes Cattle• Has lunch • Grazes cattle• Rests at home• Goes to town or

trading center with a friend

• Buys tea or paraffin• Has dinner that wife

has prepared around 8 pm

• Prays with family• Goes to bed by 10pm

© Maria Jones, Uganda 2016

Maria JonesMechanization & Postharvest Opportunities for Smallholders in Sustainable

Agriculture Symposium

July 22, 2016

Extension and TechnologiesA Gender Perspective

Why Extension?“Investing in

extension so that it helps more

farmers in more places – women as

well as men, smallholders and

commercial farmers – is the

only way to reap the full benefit of

innovation.”

Bill Gates, Gates Letter 2015

© Bhawna Thapa, Nepal 2016

Why Gender?

Women43%

Men57%

AGRICULTURE LABOR FORCE IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

If women and men farmers were given equal access to resources and services, agricultural output in

developing countries could increase by 2.5-4%

Source: FAO, 2011 http://www.fao.org/gender/Infographic/en/

Access to land

• Ownership and tenure

Access to credit

• Disparity in the percentage of female-headed households who access credit compared to their male-led counterparts

Access to inputs and technologies

• Reason behind differences in yields between men and women farmers

Access to extension services

• Cultural attitudes, discrimination and a lack of recognition of women’s roles in in food production

Access to markets

• Infrastructure and cultural constraints

Autonomy and agency in decision-making

• Women have a traditionally limited role

Major Gender Gaps in Agriculture

© Andrea Bohn, Bangladesh 2015

• Agricultural technologies can increase women’s agricultural productivity and improve nutritional outcomes

• Few technologies are designed and disseminated to address both men’s and women’s needs and preferences

Gender and Agricultural Technologies

“A technology development process which is so structured that technical innovations in food cropping

simply do not reach a major portion of the farming community makes very little sense.” Jiggins, 1986

Assess whether agricultural technologies are gender-responsive and nutrition-sensitive in terms of design, use

and dissemination.

Technology Assessments

Consequences on time and labor

Influence in adoption of technology

Change in the amount or control

of income

Effect on nutritional outcomes

(availability, quality)

Technology Assessments

• Recommendations to make technologies more attractive to men and women farmers

• Design distribution models for extension agents and input suppliers to get the technologies into men’s and women’s hands

• Increase men’s and women’s benefits from the use of technologies

© Andrea Bohn, Bangladesh 2015

Profile : Langstroth Beehive in Bangladesh

• Designed to facilitate bee health, be easy to use and maximize honey production

• Participants are trained in groups using a Farmer Field School approach by Bangladesh Small and Cottage Industries Corporation (BSCIC)

• Although seen as a culturally acceptable profession for men and women, only 20% of training participants were women

• Does not require land ownership –an advantage for the landless

• Center also sells beehives. Government gives loans

© Jan Henderson, Bangladesh 2015

INCOME & ASSETS

• Increase in income since beekeeping (Tk200,000)

• Men were more knowledgeable about the exact increase in income than women

• Women sell from their own homes instead of owning a storefront

• Women have control over income when the men are engaged in moving the bees

Profile : Langstroth Beehive in Bangladesh

TIME AND LABOR

• Division of labor changes with different bee-keeping seasons

• Need to travel with the bees. Design has portable hives, but mobility a barrier for women

• During the moving season, women take up activities that were previously not socially acceptable

• During the off season, women take care of the bees and check for parasites or bee ailments

Profiles : Treadle Pumps in Zambia

• Men and women farmers

stated that amount of crops

for sale and consumption

increased

• Women reported greater

availability of time but

complained about the

amount of energy required

to pump

• Higher proportion of

women learned about the

pumps through friends,

while men learned through

the projectMore information: http://ingenaes.illinois.edu/apply/technology-profiles/ Image Source: Kickstart international

See and treat both men and women farmers as clients

Evaluate the impact of services and technology on reducing gender disparities in agricultural productivity

Adapt gender-responsive techniques and methods to the local context

Account for time and mobility constraints

Adapt to different levels of education and literacy

Use Farmer groups to deliver services

Increase the proportion of women extension officers

Equip all extension officers with the knowledge and skills to address men and women farmers equitably

Gender-Responsive Solutions

This presentation was produced as part of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and US Government Feed the Future project “Integrating Gender and Nutrition within Extension and Advisory Services” (INGENAES) under the Leader with Associates Cooperative Agreement No. AID-OAA-LA-14-00008. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is the prime awardee, and partners with the University of California-Davis, the University of Florida, and Cultural Practice, LLC. www.ingenaes.illinois.edu

This presentation was made possible by the generous support of the American people through USAID. The contents are the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States government.

© INGENAES

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.Users are free:To share — to copy, distribute and transmit the work (without participant contact information)To remix — to adapt the work.Under the following conditions:Attribution — users must attribute the work to the authors but not in any way that suggests that the authors endorse the user or the user’s use of the work.

© Maria Jones, Uganda 2016

• More about INGENAES: http://ingenaes.illinois.edu/

• Resources that we have published thus far: http://ingenaes.illinois.edu/library/

• Pilot testing of the Technology Assessment tool: http://ingenaes.illinois.edu/apply/technology-profiles/

• MEAS (2013) Reducing the Gender Gap in Ag Extension services: http://dev.meas.illinois.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Manfre-et-al-2013-Gender-and-Extension-MEAS-Discussion-Paper.pdf

• FAO (2016) The female face of farming (infographic) http://www.fao.org/gender/Infographic/en/

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