Transforming gender relations in agriculture through women’s empowerment: benefits, challenges and trade-offs for improving nutrition outcomes
South Asia has had extraordinary economic growth over the last two decades, yet has the highest rate of child malnutrition in the world, with 4 in 10 children chronically malnourished. While agriculture is the main livelihood for majority of rural families in the region, clearly its potential to address undernutrition is not being realised. This we can see from the macro-level neglect of rural areas in targeting investments (agriculture / infrastructure) to adverse prices for agricultural commodities, and the neglect of the agricultural workforce (increasingly feminised) in terms of both skills and returns. Most nutritional interventions do target women though, given their central role in child-care, yet the problem persists. So, what is really missing in our research and analysis, and our policies?
A socially differentiated analysis of women’s position, roles and work burdens appears to be absent. Men too are missing from policy discourses on nutrition, though food production and provisioning are central to masculinities in South Asia. These gaps in our understanding must be filled in order to inform policies and programmes in the region and LANSA research programme seeks to do this.
The gender-nutrition-childcare connection in South Asia
Recent research has indicated that the regularity of feeding and care has significant implications for the nutrition and health of children below two years of age (Kadiyala et al. 2012) seen primarily as a woman’s job.
In South Asia, women are responsible for ‘reproductive’ activities (childcare; domestic work; health care), in addition to both paid and subsistence ‘productive’ work. Yet these social norms and expectations are not fixed, they shift through an individual’s life-course, but also in response to broader social and structural changes. New production regimes, processes of commodification, migration, price fluctuations, market competition, educational expansion, health provision, and contexts of conflict – can all change the dynamics of gender relations, and consequently, nutritional outcomes (Mitra and Rao, 2016*). These changes all contribute to shaping gender hierarchies and hence deserve due consideration.
In Afghanistan, The Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock (MAIL), supported by FAO, has formulated a strategy for 2015-2020 on women in agriculture. It argues that the role of women in the Afghan agricultural sector is a paradox: 1) on the one hand, women are major actors in agriculture contributing more than 40% of the labour force; 2) at the same time, Afghan women are marginalised in relation to control and decisions over productive resources.
The situation of child nutrition is alarming in Bangladesh with 36% stunting, 14% wasting and 33% underweight. As an agrarian country it there is a huge potential to improve the nutritional status of women and their children through agriculture. However, there is only limited evidence on how one may influence women in agriculture to address their own health, and the nutrition of their children.
Similar is the case for India – a majority of rural women are engaged in agricultural work, and are faced with a harsh trade-off – to work or care for their children. While there are policies for women’s empowerment, for supporting women in agriculture and for improving nutrition, there is little synergy between them. LANSA research in India demonstrates that without attention to the reduction of drudgery and the redistribution of women’s work and attention to their personal socio-economic wellbeing, outcomes are unlikely to improve substantially.
Emerging findings from LANSA research in Pakistan show that women's agricultural work can have positive impacts (through higher incomes) as well as negative impacts (through less time and physical energy available for their own and their children's care) on nutrition. Agricultural workforce is becoming increasingly feminised and evidence shows that children of female agricultural workers suffer from higher levels of malnutrition. However, women’s agricultural work remains almost universally underpaid. In addition, certain agricultural activities (cotton picking / livestock rearing) are deemed exclusively ‘women’s work’ and men fail to compensate for increases in women's agricultural labour by providing more care in the household. Although progress has happened with the formulation of the Inter-sectoral Nutrition Strategy, women's work needs greater recognition in agricultural policy, programming and investments.
Opening up discussions online
Leveraging Agriculture for Nutrition in South Asia programme is engaged in cooperation with FAO’s FSN Forum in running this online discussion. We invite opinions and encourage discussion on processes, as well as examples of good practice with regard to policy changes empowering women in agriculture, and how these changes altered the woman’s nutrition status for the better, and subsequently child nutrition.
From this e-discussion we would like to explore:
- How far can policy recognition of women’s roles and contributions to agriculture lead to strengthening women’s agency, empowerment and in turn nutritional outcomes?
- Are there experiences / strategies that can help address the issue of women’s time?
- examples demonstrating the impact of the reduction or redistribution of unpaid care work on nutritional outcomes in agricultural households
- Do men, community / state institutions take responsibility for the care of young children, especially during peak cultivation seasons when women’s labour is much needed?
- How rigid or flexible are social norms when it comes to issues of survival?
- Are you aware of changes in gender divisions of work, roles / responsibilities in contexts of change (eg: shifts in cropping patterns, technical innovations, the loss of ecosystem services, social and political conflict)? How is the contribution of men to household nutrition changing?
- What is the link between dietary diversity, women’s engagement with agriculture, and access to ecosystem services?
- For Afghanistan, we want to capture experiences about women’s roles in agriculture and agribusiness value chains in order to shape policies and interventions to recognise and support women’s contribution to livelihood security.
We need to know more about policies and programmes that enable women in South Asia to manage the competing pressures of agriculture, childcare and household responsibilities, and to identify approaches that improve household wellbeing and nutrition, particularly of young children, and very much look forward to reading your responses.
Thanking you in advance!
Lead Facilitator: Nitya Rao, India research & overall Gender crosscut lead, LANSA
Co-facilitators: Nigel Poole, Afghanistan research, LANSA; Barnali Chakraborthy, Bangladesh research, LANSA; Haris Gazdar, Pakistan research, LANSA
*Mitra, A and N. Rao (2016) Families, farms and changing gender relations in Asia. In FAO and MSSRF (eds.) Family farming: Meeting the zero hunger challenge. Academic Foundation, New Delhi
- Read 94 contributions
The U.S gave political asylum status to thousands of Afghans in the 1980’s. One Afghan Center was in California on the Union City / Fremont border not far from what became 'Little Kabul'. The people in the Afghan Center were very interested in helping their Afghan countrymen combat poverty and were excellent at determining what ideas might work. Their primary focus was lobbying organizations to help Afghanistan.
In the case of poultry, it was important to get as many Afghan people familiar with modern poultry production and modern small business practices as possible. The UN FAO Poultry Development Service in Rome Italy did an excellent job in this regard. If I remember correctly, UN FAO personnel conducted 1 hour courses every week on poultry production and small business development in many parts of Afghanistan. It took 6 months for an Afghan woman to complete their course.
The UN FAO personnel in Rome should answer the detailed questions that you posted since they were in charge of the technical direction of the FAO poultry program in Afghanistan. I believe that Afghan women will become major producers of poultry. I also believe that Afghan women will become excellent businesswomen. You may want to read the FAO report “Poultry Projects enhance lives of afghan women” and USAID report “Case Study of Poultry and Grape/Raisin Subsectors in Afghanistan” for more information on present status of poultry production in Afghanistan. It takes time for new ideas to be implemented. The Afghan government personnel may need more technical and business development help (and perhaps very limited policy help?).
I know in the 1980s that Bell Telephone Labs did a major internal study on why it took 15 years on average for new inventions to become commercial products. Many of the problems that the Bell System encountered in converting research to development and operation are exactly the problems that the FAO encountered. In particular, you need to train development and operation personnel in the new technology and finance the costs of starting development and operation facilities. Bell Labs management felt that researching a new idea costs 10% of the budget while developing the idea cost 90% of the budget. I fear that international development personnel may not have the necessary business experience to convert a new idea from research to development to operations. For example does the FAO have an expert who can increase exports to Afghanistan of the following supplies: basic home canning kits (consisting of a water bath canner, (6) 1-pint mason jars, (6) lids, canning guide, jar lifter, lid wand, canning funnel, bubble freerTM ), additional mason jars and lids, pressure canner/cookers, portable food storage facilities, greenhouse equipment, garden hand tools, garden fencing, garden equipment suitable for preparing large gardens for schools, small trucks for transporting supplies, garden seeds, nursery stock, and horticulture information?
I feel that Mojamma Jafar Emal has done an excellent job although I do not know him. He deserves the full support of the UN FAO, World Bank, USAID and the NGOs.
Paul Rigterink
Mr. Brad Wilson
80% of the "undernourished" are rural, (as is 70% of LDC population,) from the rural half of the world, and in many places about half of them are farmers. So paying farmers fairly is a key to family farms, to support for all family members, and keeping them together as a family. What we've had instead are global farmers subsidizing everyone else.
In many places, cheap crop prices are also driving down livestock prices, (a huge part of global farm income, especially for the poor,) as livestock leave farms to giant animal factories, that are subsidized by farmers, (by cheap feed prices). So this hurts resource conserving crop rotations and contributes to climate change.
In these ways, global farmers are colonized by "megatechnic" (Lewis Mumford, The Myth of the Machine,) agribusiness. Through cheap prices farmers are forced to subsidize the agribusinesses that exploit them. The corporate and political issues, where global farmers are exploited, must be considered as context for these women's issues. Unfortunately, most countries are weak in global agriculture, and can't have much impact on prices.
Free markets (neoliberalism) chronically fail for farm products, so that's the economic problem. It can be fixed politically with supply management and adequate ("living wage") minimum Price Floors, as has been advocated by the WTO Africa Group (https://zcomm.org/zblogs/wto-africa-group-with-nffc-not-ewg-by-brad-wilson/), La Via Campesina (https://zcomm.org/zblogs/via-campesina-with-nffc-support-for-fair-farm-p...), European leaders (https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/impact-of-gatt-on-world-hunger-by-mark-rit...) and in the US (as in the first two links in this sentence). In global supply management, supply reductions are needed, (even as reserve supplies are maintained, to be triggered by Price Ceilings). At the same time, many regions, such as Africa, need a larger share of global production, (greater yields and production). Fair prices can go a long way in making that happen. Fair trade agreements are also needed, not free trade, (as the latter is based upon the free markets that chronically fail for farmers).
Women's issues need to be brought together with these larger issues, this larger economic and political context. We see some of that with the women who have won the Food Sovereignty Prize (http://foodsovereigntyprize.org/fs-prize/). In the West, the women of #FarmJustice (https://zcomm.org/zblogs/the-women-of-farm-justice-forgotten-by-women-to...), including minority women, (https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/ensure-that-farmers-receive-a-fair-living-...) have been leaders in this.
US farm justice advocates like these women have played a "unique" role in this, because the US has had such a dominant share of major global exports. The US too has been colonized by global mega-agribusiness, and has chosen to lose money on farm exports for decades. Agribusiness lobbying led Congress to reduce (1953-1995) and eliminate (1996-2018) Price Floor programs. Previously, 1942-1952, corn prices averaged over $12/bushel, wheat over $16/bu, cotton over $2.50/lb, etc. In the 21st century, due to the policy changes, prices have been close to a third of that.
The US and Europe need fair prices, (with supply management fairly shared globally) to eliminate the need for any subsidies, as subsidies are unfair.
Changes need to be transitional, as it takes time for global rural economies to adjust to the greatly increased wealth of a fair standard. Global farmers need to be protected from land grabbing and other abuses in the process, especially women, as in the article. 60 years of cheap prices have created savage dilemmas that are very difficult to fix. It's like the refugee crisis from the Middle East. So much was done by Europe and the US to cause the problems over such a long period that it's tough to fix, as the problems explode in new ways.
Bottom line, Global rural women and their families deserve to be paid fairly. The problem of global corporate megamachines, of the colonization of global agriculture, must be addressed to achieve this.
I was excited to see the two contributions concerning Afghanistan and poultry production for women. They seem to present contrasting experiences, so it would be good to hear more:
Comment to Paul Rigterink: it seems that the first stage of your proposal was implemented. How successful was it? Can you comment further?
Secondly, I am more intrigued by the failure in implementation of the subsequent large-scale proposals. Can you say why the ideas were not carried forward? Lots of other questions spring to mind about such initiatives:
- Who were the women targeted?
- What level of resources was given, and was lack of resources a reason for not adopting the large-scale production initiative?
- What level of complementary services and training was provided?
- Were markets for poultry products easily accessible?
- Did policy makers have other priorities?
And fundamentally, did the concept transfer well from Africa to Afghanistan? I have conducted some policy research among food system stakeholders in different parts of Afghanistan and found that they are aware of the importance of considering ideas from other countries, but that projects cannot easily be copied from countries where the contexts differ.
Thanks also to Mohammad Jafar Emal for sharing your article on backyard poultry production. I was impressed that poultry production was seen as one element of an agricultural growth strategy, and not the only solution; and then, that income gained was reinvested in other economic enterprises and thus multiplied among individuals, households and in the local economy – at least to some extent.
In the introduction you have pointed out important technical factors which make poultry production a suitable enterprise. What do you think, Paul?
Can I ask another couple of questions: was location near to Mazar an important factor for success in Balkh? How successful was the project in Jauzjan and more remote areas?
And more importantly for this forum, please can you explain in greater detail about the level of control that the women beneficiaries had over production, marketing and reinvestment of the income?
Are there any other experiences out there that will help us to understand more about the potential and limitations for poultry production among women?
Many thanks
Suggestions for Transforming gender relations in agriculture through women’s empowerment: benefits, challenges and trade-offs for improving nutrition outcomes
Prof. Zhanhuan Shang,
School of Life Science, Lanzhou University, Gansu province, 730000, China,
My suggestions for exploring more way to make more benefit to improve women's nutrition, is that 1) make the special part of financial benefit from carbon trade by country government, FAO, UNEP or others organization, that because women make more contribution for carbon sequestration and maintain carbon balance in the rural area, which need more business accounting of gender's contribution of carbon management in the world. 2) We should make special department or organization to carry the special carbon fund for women's carbon compensation from carbon trade-off in worldwide. 3) A Collaborative project worldwide should be planned to survey the gender's contribution for carbon management to make the women's benefit involve into carbon business.
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尚占环 教授/博士
单位：兰州大学生命科学学院
地址：甘肃省兰州市天水南路222号，兰州大学盘旋路校区逸夫生物楼708室，兰州，730000。
Prof. Dr. Zhanhuan Shang
Department: School of Life Sciences, Lanzhou University, China.
Address: Room 708, Yifu Biology Buidling, No. 222, Tianshui South Road of Lanzhou City, Gansu Province, 730000, China.
Poultry has the potential for both enhancing women's incomes and improving nutritional outcomes. Thank you very much for the information around poultry, especially the Women's Poultry Associations, in Afghanistan. The Associations have an added advantage potentially of giving both visibility and legitimacy to women's income contributions. How far they retain control over these incomes needs however to be examined.
It is true that in poor, rural households, whole families are nutritionally disadvantaged and not just women. The objective therefore is indeed to improve the wellbeing of the entire household and not just women within it. How can this be done? I think several strategies have been suggested in the discussions on this forum so far. An important one is to recognise and acknowledge women's contributions to agriculture and the generation of household incomes. Such recognition could be used to strengthen their legal entitlements to inputs and services, and also enhance their agency and say in household decision-making. Second, in most of South Asia, culturally and socially women are responsible for domestic and care work, including cooking and feeding the family. A second strategy is therefore to ensure that they have sufficient time for these tasks, without stretching their working day too much. This could involve the provision of fuel and energy, drudgery-reduction technologies, access to clean drinking water, sanitation and health services etc. It could also involve a more equitable sharing of tasks between men and women in households. Thirdly, we need to make sure that women too receive fair returns for their work contributions. Gender wage gaps in agriculture often disadvantage women workers, and this needs to be corrected.
In 2003 I worked with the Afghan Project personnel in Freemont California to develop ways on increasing thw income of women in Afghanistan. Our discussions centered around my paper on poultry production. See "Doubling the Income of Africa's Poorest Farmers" at my website at https://sites.google.com/site/PaulRigterink / We also discussed the use of home canning. See "A Plan for Improving Food Security in Afghanistan" at my website
Subsequent to our discussions the Afghan Project personnel were able to help convince the FAO Poultry Development Service, USAID, the World Bank etc to start a major number of backyard poultry projects (0-50 chickens) in Afghanistan. Unfortunetly, they were not able to convince these agencies to develop followup plans so that the women could fully take advantage of modern poultry technology. Followup plans would include descriptions of how to raise 50-500 chickens (family farm size) and how to raise 500-10,000 chickens (commercial farm size) (the technology is slightly different as described in my poultry paper above. Policy personnel need to establish a policy that Afghan women raising poultry should be introduced to the technologies for raising 200 and 1000 chickens. The differences in the stages of establishing a commercial poultry farm need to be fully explained to Afghan women. Afghan women raising 1000 chickens will have a lot more control of their lives because they will have much more control of the purse strings of their family.
Women's unique role as mothers and care-givers, coupled with their marginalization in South Asian societies makes for a compelling case for empowering women to improve the nutrition and well-being of entire households. Evidence shows that women earners are likely to make more pro-nutrition consumption choices for the households. However, usually women have limited agency and decision making authority in the household where a woman's income may be entitled to the household. For women’s income to be a factor in influencing consumption choices and nutrition outcomes, there needs to be acknowledgement within the family that a particular income stream does belong to a woman. Therefore it is important to recognize and acknowledge the contribution of women's paid work in the household which in turn may also have empowerment effects for the woman.
Dear FSN-Moderator,
Please find attached herewith an Article "Study on Creation of Other Income Sources from Backyard Poultry Production in Afghanistan.
This project has reached the poor rural women, the main target, who benefited in terms of income, food security, social and economic empowerment. The additional income generated through the sale of eggs, pullets and old stock had immediate positive impacts for the rural women beneficiaries that are practicing the improved backyard poultry management. With the help of Women Poultry Associations beneficiaries are able to sell their products and generate extra income that is used for domestic needs and creation of other income sources.
Best regards
Jafar Emal, National Poultry Advisor,
IFAD/RMLSP/MAIL, Kabul, Afghanistan,
I have different opinion regarding the topic under discussion. It is totally wrong if we only talk about women empowerment of families linked with agriculture, a totally bogus idea. It is the whole family that is neglected and must get care. Here the education can play an integral role, because what we can see that the situation is entirely different for well-educated group of people and the women are automatically empowered and well respected in society. This is the responsibility of the government to launch a sound program for education, prosperity and well-being of families linked with agriculture. They should be given different incentives/subsidies to make their lives comfortable. There many more to write about different policies for uplifting the whole families… but the point is we must first decide that whether we’re interested in just women empowerment or rather in uplifting the whole family.
Thanks Ramani for raising the very important point around seasonal variations. In some senses, given the seasonality of agriculture, this should be obvious, but it is quite often overlooked. In some new LANSA research in India we are finding similar results. During peak agricultural seasons, the time available for cooking and caring declines substantially, creating energy deficits in both adults and children. Thanks for the reference to your paper.
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