By 2050, demand for wheat is predicted to increase by 70 percent due to population growth, climate change and dietary changes. Agricultural research and development must enhance the productivity of wheat-based systems and expand the uptake of improved wheat technologies.
One key challenge is to foster the access of women—who often play a large if uncredited role in agriculture—to new technologies and technical support, as well as to opportunities to contribute their ideas and experience in their households and communities. To begin to address these issues, in 2013 a small team of CGIAR gender specialists proposed an unprecedented study on gender norms, agency and innovation.
The GENNOVATE study, which completed data collection in 2016, explored how gender norms affected agricultural innovation and technology uptake. “What sets GENNOVATE apart is that it is qualitative, comparative and very large-scale,” said Lone Badstue, strategic leader for gender research at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and chair of GENNOVATE’s executive committee. “This allows us to identify and compare broad patterns across contexts, while acknowledging and giving weight to local circumstances.”
The full GENNOVATE study was composed of 137 case studies on more than 7,500 rural men and women in 26 countries, involving 11 CGIAR Research Programs. WHEAT-supported research focused on 43 villages in Afghanistan (4), Bangladesh (6), Ethiopia (4), India (12), Morocco (3), Nepal (3), Pakistan (12) and Uzbekistan (4). With support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, GENNOVATE has also fostered capacity building and knowledge sharing across a diverse community of gender researchers of different backgrounds and experience.
“Across the wheat study contexts, gender norms underpin power relations and privilege men’s agency, authority, and resource control,” said Badstue. “Yet, these norms are evolving and, in six villages where circumstances foster the participation and agency of both women and men in agricultural innovation, the evidence points to more rapid and gender-inclusive rural development.”
In those villages, normative shifts towards more equitable gender relations drove significantly higher empowerment and poverty reduction than in the other 37 communities studied and, in several cases, men recognized that women’s participation had raised household food security and the quality of life.
More empowerment for both genders is beneficial
A GENNOVATE case study in Gabado, Ethiopia, found that training and other interventions of the external entity, “Community Conversations,” led husbands to discuss important business more with their wives, driven by a perception that, as a result, the overall quality of life and food security in their homes had improved. According to the study, although many men in various countries are now seeing the advantages of involving women in farm decisions, women of all ages still lack equal access to education or training.
Highest-rated agricultural innovation by women and men: Improved wheat varieties
As part of the GENNOVATE project, facilitators discussed new agricultural technologies with focus groups. Amid diverse innovations identified, improved wheat varieties emerged overwhelmingly as the most favored, followed by conservation agriculture-based improved practices. Across all wheat studies 61 percent of men and 32 percent of women ranked improved wheat varieties among the top two, citing benefits such as increased yield, profitability, collaboration with external partners and decreased work burden.
Men’s temporary migration can open space for women’s development
GENNOVATE found that men’s increasing out-migration from rural areas to find work opens rural women’s access to training and education opportunities, as well as encouraging them to adopt more assertive household and community roles. The report gives the example of Pekadi, a community in southern Nepal, with a high male out-migration and where more than half the women own land and lead their households, while over 80 percent do most of the farm work.
Action research raises women’s profile in wheat farming in Nigeria and Sudan
In addition to research done through GENNOVATE, an ICARDA-led Support for Agricultural Research for Development of Strategic Crops in Africa (SARD-SC) project showed agricultural feminization in Sub-Saharan Africa is growing, in particular in low-income countries. Action research to integrate women beneficiaries into the project in Sudan and Nigeria has helped to identify actions and approaches for more widespread application in wheat production systems.
With WHEAT support, the initiative employed context-specific interventions to grow wheat, demonstrate technologies, add value and improve access to microcredit. Women’s involvement was facilitated by gaining the trust and approval of family members and better institutional support. The incomes of women participating in value addition (1,143 in Sudan and 84 in Nigeria) have increased by up to 50 percent. Through adopting improved wheat varieties, 24 women in Sudan and 300 women in Nigeria increased their wheat yields by 62 percent and 28 percent.
Workloads and drudgery have diminished due to mechanization and improved access to key inputs such as pesticides. Women’s decision-making power increased through participation in training and field days. 2,500 women in Nigeria and 783 women in Sudan gained access to microcredit, providing them more sustained control over income-generating activities. To scale up, the project is linking with policy makers and gender progressive institutions. Similar activities are under way in Ethiopia.
“This shows how enhancing women’s involvement in agricultural development generates positive impacts beyond the lives of individual, women with benefits felt across entire communities and nations,” said Dina Najjar, Social and Gender Specialist, Social, Economics and Policy Research Theme, Sustainable Intensification and Resilient Production Systems Program (SIRPS), ICARDA, who has led the work described.
