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Sustainable Agricultural Intensification
A Handbook for Practitioners in East and Southern Africa
Mateete Bekunda, Jonathan Odhong, Irmgard Hoeschle-Zeledon
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eBook - ePub
Sustainable Agricultural Intensification
A Handbook for Practitioners in East and Southern Africa
Mateete Bekunda, Jonathan Odhong, Irmgard Hoeschle-Zeledon
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About This Book
This book provides an insight into the background, lessons learned, and the methodology of facilitating the application of best-bet/best-fit agricultural technologies to smallholder farms in East and Southern Africa (ESA). All technologies highlighted within this book, except those on livestock feeding, were trialed and demonstrated in farmers' fields over an eight-year period [2012 - 2020] as part of the Feed the Future/USAID funded research-for-development Africa RISING ESA Project and supported by the CGIAR. The livestock feed technologies were compiled from Eastern Africa literature and included to offer a full set of technologies relevant for farmers in mixed farming systems.Topics covered include the introduction of resilient and nutrient-dense crops, better arrangement of crops in the field to amplify intercrop benefits, and the management of soils to improve soil fertility and minimize physical soil and nutrient loss. The publication also features technologies for postharvest loss reduction, livestock feeding, food processing, and in the later chapters, important expositions on how multiple technologies can be creatively integrated in a farming system and how key products of research can be taken to scale. In the first chapter and throughout the handbook, the importance of taking gender dynamics into account to ensure technologies produce equitable outcomes is emphasized. This book: provides evidence-based descriptions of sustainable agricultural intensification technologies that have been validated iteratively with smallholder farmers.a convenient, easy-to-read, and science-based 'how-to' guide for successful deployment of improved agricultural technologies that will ensure readers from development/scaling agencies save time and resources for research trials and instead focus on technology deployment.gives evidence of how building research and development partnerships can be a critical element for successful delivery and scaling up of agricultural technologies.The book is aimed primarily at development practitioners who seek new competences in taking new technologies to scale. However, the breadth of topics covered makes this book an essential resource for agricultural scientists as well as university and college students aspiring to apply systems thinking in future agricultural research and development work.
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Agriculture1 Weaving gender into sustainable intensification interventions
Introduction
Throughout sub-Saharan Africa, women provide substantial labor for agricultural production, yet they continue to lack access to and control over land and other vital resources (Palacios-Lopez et al., 2017). Greater gender equity has the potential to enhance the adoption of agricultural technologies, and could make a significant contribution to the alleviation of poverty (Rola-Rubzen et al., 2020). However, women continue to face specific challenges and tend to show lower and slower adoption rates compared with men. The constraints to women’s adoption have been identified as both demand side (farmers) and supply side (development actors).
Five major constraints prevent women farmers from increasing their adoption of agricultural technologies (Ragasa et al., 2014):
• lack of participation in priority setting and the innovation process
• limited access to information and low literacy rates
• poor access to necessary services and inputs (e.g., labor, land, and credit)
• insufficient affordability and liquidity
• socio-cultural barriers, such as restrictive gender norms and cultural biases.
On the supply side, development actors are failing to pay sufficient attention to the different needs and preferences of men and women. Extension systems need to develop greater gender awareness and improve the gender balance of their staff if they are to provide equal services to women and men (Ragasa et al., 2014).
Sustainable intensification (SI) is understood as increasing productivity without causing harm to the environment (Pretty et al., 2011). SI can be achieved by introducing more or different inputs (e.g., new knowledge and skills, labor, chemicals, and machinery); a change to higher-yielding crops or varieties, and more productive livestock breeds; a conversion to more productive farming systems (e.g., through irrigation); or a combination of these (Martin et al., 2018).
However, the social aspects of SI have been largely neglected. At the household level, it is important to answer the following questions. Who acquires new knowledge and skills? Who decides on inputs, varieties, and land use? How are labor requirements distributed? Who reaps the benefits of increased productivity? These and other questions are important in designing the dissemination and scaling up of SI technologies to ensure women benefit equally from the resulting opportunities.
This chapter introduces gender concepts in agricultural development and discusses the ways in which gender concerns can be woven into SI interventions to produce more equitable outcomes. Referring to Africa RISING experiences, the chapter describes activities that can enhance women’s participation in SI, measure the benefits, and transform gender relations.
Gender concepts in agricultural development
Biology and social behavior interact in complex ways and constitute a broad research field. However, the distinction between sex (which relates to differences in the body and reproduction) and gender (which relates to differences in social norms and behavior) has become accepted as useful for training and development work. One of the key messages this distinction conveys is that gendered behaviors are learned and not inborn. For this reason, they can be changed where they promote inequalities.
Gender equality and gender equity are connected but different concepts. Historically, women have experienced social disadvantages in comparison to men. To use the idea of a playing field, women and men often do not operate from the same starting position. As a result, specific measures may be necessary to ensure fair play. This process of ensuring fairness is called gender equity. In the long run, equity will lead to equality. Gender equality is a state in which the opportunities you enjoy are not dependent on your gender (UNFPA, 2005). Since the 1990s, it has also been acknowledged that inequalities do not always result from just one social factor (such as being a woman). Different social factors, such as gender and age, may be combined. For instance, a young woman may face more limitations than an elderly woman. At the same time, an elderly woman may be privileged compared with a young man. Different social factors interact to produce inequality, and this has been termed intersectionality.
In agriculture (as in other areas of society), gender norms play a decisive role. They are the unwritten, socially agreed rules governing how men and women should behave. Gender norms shape labor patterns and burdens, as well as access to and ownership of resources, and decision-making concerning them, often to the disadvantage of women. For many agricultural projects, it has become mandatory to assess gender issues in the given context before the project planning stage. An initial gender analysis helps to examine “the different roles, rights, and opportunities of men and women as well as relations between them. It also identifies disparities, examines why such disparities exist, determines whether they are a concern, and looks at how they can be addressed” (USAID, 2011). In most cases, a gender analysis looks at the distribution of household resources (e.g., income, land, and credit) and decision-making in terms of use of and benefits from these resources. In the best case, it also extends to gender issues at the community, market, or government levels.
When practitioners examine gender issues before planning extension activities, they develop increased awareness of dealing with inequalities and should establish an approach to address them. The gender equality continuum (Figure 1.1), developed by the Interagency Gender Working Group (IGWG), distinguishes between exploitative, accommodating, and transformative approaches. IGWG has developed an exercise in which extension officers and development partners can reflect on various gender approaches, including their own current or intended approach. Facilitation steps are available in IGWG (2017).
The gender equality continuum describes how the accommodating and transformative approaches are situated on a continuum and, moving toward gender equality, interventions will shift from the former toward the latter.
• Exploitative approaches promote gender stereotypes and reinforce inequalities. Following the principle of ‘do no harm’, they should be avoided. For example, in its nutrition activities, a project invites women only. Facilitators emphasize women’s responsibilities and supposed ‘superior capacity’ in this area. Men are trained in mechanization technologies. Men’s perception of themselves as having higher technical abilities is confirmed.
• Accommodating approaches work around inequalities. They acknowledge but do not question underlying norms. For example, in a community, post-harvest activities that involve high levels of drudgery are assigned to women. Extension activities aim to reduce women’s labor, but do not challenge the culturally constructed gender roles.
• Transformative approaches aim to ensure equity (and establish gender equality as a result). They raise awareness of the fact that norms are transformable, and show that both men and women stand to gain from gender equality. For example, a nutrition intervention targets husbands, wives, and other household members. It also includes men and women community leaders, health workers, and representatives from school feeding programs. It emphasizes the shared responsibility of different actors and promotes changes at multiple levels.
Figure 1.1. Gender equality continuum. Figure from The Gender Integration Continuum User’s Guide, developed with assistance from the United States Agency for International Development’s Bureau for Global Health (Washington, DC: IGWG, 2017). Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved.
The gender equality continuum helps to define which gender approach an intervention will be based on. However, more information may be needed on which activities might lead to the intended changes and how expected outputs and outcomes can be measured. The reach–benefit– empower concept constitutes a useful planning tool in this respect (Figure 1.2). In the first step (reach), women need to be targeted as participants in interventions. This does not automatically give them greater benefits, but it is a necessary prerequisite to the second and third steps (benefit and empower). Benefits can be created where the specific needs, constraints, preferences, or objectives of women (of different ages) are considered in the activities. Finally, empowerment requires intervention to strengthen women’s decision-making power. Each step is related to indicators that measure achievement. Some development actors, e.g., the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and German Corporation for International Cooperation (GIZ), have combined the gender equality continuum with the reach–benefit–empower concept, relating ‘reach’ and ‘benefit’ to a gender-responsive (or accommodating) approach. A gender-transformative approach would consist of all three steps.
The following three sections are aligned with the three steps of the reach–benefit–empower concept. The first describes a reflection and planning exercise conducted by Africa RISING teams in their efforts to enhance the involvement of women in extension activities. The second section features a tool to monitor perceptions of drudgery among men and women farmers in relation to conventional and SI technologies. The third section presents a tool for promoting gender transformation in households. When applying these tools and exercises, it is important that activities are embedded in broader gender programs to ensure efficacy in terms of reaching, benefiting, and empowering women, and transforming gender relations.
Enhancing women’s participation in extension activities
To successfully scale up SI technologies, agricultural development actors need to reach out to a diverse group of farmers, including women and men, of younger and older ages, and different social groups. Extension efforts are frequently biased toward reaching men, and women have unequal access to the same information. Studies (e.g., Ragasa et al., 2014) show that technology adoption can be enhanced and made more sustainable when dissemination efforts are broadened to target both husband and wife within a household. Such an approach creates space for women’s preferences to be considered in negotiations and adaptation within households. The following exercise (see Box 1.1) is an appropriate first step for agricultural extension officers and their development partners. It is suitable for extension teams who meet on a regular basis.
Figure 1.2. Reach–benefit–empower concept. Adapted from Johnson et al. (2018). Reproduced with permission from the authors.
Box 1.1. Enhancing women farmers’ participation in extension activities exercise
60–90 minutes.
Objectives: to raise team members’ awareness of and commitment to the topic; to identify challenges to enhancing women farmers’ participation and avenues for addressing them; and establish an action plan.
Preparation: Prepare three large flip chart posters, the first titled “Challenges”, the second “Avenues”, and the third “Planned action”.
Materials: Flip chart paper, marker pens, sticky tape.
Facilitation:
1. Introduce the exercise. Make the objectives clear. Justify why women’s participation in extension activi...