Global Forum on Food Security and Nutrition (FSN Forum)

May I attempt a historical perspective and question one of the basic premises of Extension programs. I think the cooperative extension system originated in the USA as a means of educating farmers living in isolation in remote areas. I think this goes back to the Homestead Act that provided each farm family a 1/4th section of land (1 mile sq.), or 160 ac (65 ha) with a homestead in the middle. The result was people averaged a half mile (0.8 km) from their nearest neighbor. Thus the extension program was set up to establish a clear documentable administrative link from the research/extension program to the individual farm family. Now when this is applied to developing countries and smallholder communities don't most people live in villages in easy contact with their neighbor. In this case is this documentable administrative link still necessary? Desirable perhaps but really necessary? Certainly the T & V (training and visit system) attempted this, but didn’t that fairly quickly become "talk and vanish"? Given the financial limits of most host countries, and the overly ideal message that beneficiaries most likely don't have the means to fully accommodate without some massive compromises as I mentioned earlier, Wouldn't it be more effective to look at mass media for to deliver the basic extension message, and then do some follow up to see how well it is received, the compromise people make to optimize the message to their individual situation?

Just something to think about.

Dick

I wish to send a small contribution on the topic. 

I am using the case study of an ongoing project as an example.

I have just given a brief background of the project, and the role the project plays when it comes to gender.

Please see below.

Kind Regards,

Pride Ebile

What role can agricultural extension and advisory services play in realizing gender equality and improved nutrition?

Case Study: Eco-Sustainable Gardens: Empowering Minority Mbororo Women

1. Background:

This is an ongoing project in the North West Region of Cameroon. The project is focus on Mbororo Minority women. The Mbororo people are a minority group in Cameroon with the Nomadic and semi-nomadic lifestyle. With climate change (longer dry season) challenges, the men have to travel far to graze the cattle, living the women behind. This make the women and children very vulnerable because they depend on their men (food insecurity and nutritional insecurity).

This project focuses on improving Mbororo women’s economic as well as physical access to nutritious food. It aims to employ an innovative approach to upland farming in establishing an economically viable, eco-friendly gardening system for the Mbororo women of the North West Region of Cameroon. This gardening system makes use of cattle manure, an otherwise wasted resource which could also be potentially harmful to the environment in that it could be a pollutant to streams and also a source of greenhouse gases emissions if not managed properly.

In accordance with the design of the project, three classes of crops were deliberated and, adopted to help with some “Food Nutritional security pillars”.

• Economic Access to food (to be sold in the market): Pepper and Telfairia Occidentalis (fluted pumpkin) were adopted as economic or driver crops.
• Micronutrient Needs (hidden hunger): Eggplant, Okra, and Amaranth were adopted for provision of micronutrients
• Indigenous crop: ‘Folere’ and ‘Caracachee’ were adopted.

Key to the project is sustainability (Financial, Managerial, and Environmental Sustainably), which is where the Agricultural extension and advisory services aspect of the projects falls. The projects employs 3 graduate, to work with the women, and each plays a strategic role in the management and running of the garden project.

• Agricultural engineer graduate: Foncham Linda
• Business management graduate: Kidio Iris
• And a native Mbororo graduate: Ramata Ramani

2. Gender role as agricultural extension and advisory services.

• Reduce dependency of the women on their men: This is through working together to build a market for the first group of the garden products (economic access to food).
• Nutritional education: Know what to eat and the importance of type of food helps with dietary diversity and thus micronutrient deficiency.
• Social Network: Bringing the gardens women together and linking them to the market women help empower both market women selling to products from the gardens and the minority women for these can easily relate and better understand the functioning of their partners.
• Saving: The AEAS plays a key role in helping them build the culture of saving money from the garden.

Contribution By:

Pride Ebile

Project Coordinator of Eco-Sustainable Gardens: Empowering Minority Mbororo Women  Research Associate Food Security Center of University of Hohenheim Stuttgart Germany.

Agricultural extension can help in bridging the gap between agriculture and health through nutrition delivery.

Agricultural extension can employ information and communication (ICT) tools in nutrition delivery and this is an area that women can really play a critical role. ICT tools can be used in technology transfer which makes farmers more productive and ensures that access to up to date information on nutrition as it affects localities is more efficient and the dissemination methodologies are location specific.

In Oyo state, Nigeria nutrition delivery is facilitated by the Agricultural development Agency through their desk officer Mr Ajani who oversees the activities of extension workers and empowers them regularly with up to date information courtesy HarvestPlus Nigeria. This is an example that can be replicated. 

Women have more accurate information as regards nutrition for households and as such, mainstreaming household information through women is key to developing a sustainable food security network.

WHAT ROLE CAN AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION AND ADVISORY SERVICES PLAY IN REALIZING GENDER EQUALITY AND IMPROVED NUTRITION

Margaret J. Koyenikan

Department of Agricultural Economics and Extension services,

University of Benin, PMB 5114,

Benin-City, Nigeria.



Agricultural Extension and Advisory Services (AEAS) are expected to address issues related to agriculture and rural development. Gender and nutrition are among the several thematic areas to address in order to achieve better living standard for the people. The principles of Agricultural Extension include comprehensiveness in nature and involvement of all the family members which relate to the discussion point. Gender affects access to production resources and level of involvement in decision making which could tell on nutritional status of typical African household. The effect of nutrition on physical, mental and social status of people could be obvious while gender equality issue in development is yet to be fully accepted even by practitioners. In Nigeria, extension service is still largely public sector-driven and unified. However, the following are suggested:



AEAS need to disseminate information and technologies that can change attitude, knowledge and skills of the people on gender and nutrition.

They need to apply scientific research and knowledge to agriculture and home management practices, educate farming families on the need and benefit of adoption.

Facilitate needs assessment and capacity building at community level.



To play these roles effectively, AEAS practitioners need capacity building as well for competencies in communication, human and leadership development and programme planning.

I agree AEAS have important role to play towards gender equality and nutrition security through capacity building, facilitation, demonstrations, knowledge and information sharing on gender roles and responsibilities, best practices on nutrition, platforms and networks for advocacy, linkages to institutions and other actors in the value chain. I strongly suggest review of current curriculum to reflect contemporary development issues, specialization, and acquisition of relevant skills.

What Role can Agricultural Extension and Advisory Services play in realizing gender equality and improved nutrition.

My View

Knowledge is POWER and Technology is key to improve quality and minimize cost. Improved quality brought about by innovation can open doors for profit maximization which would create room for development for the farmer and boost the economy. Thereby upgrading the female farmer and empowering her to produce more quality agric materials.

We know that Nigerian women comprise the largest percentage of workforce in the agric sector (agronigeria.com.ng). And their income level is lower than men due to poor access to facilities, gender gap and the required support required for them to access land and cultivate larger portions using technology and subsidized farm inputs.

And in Africa the case isn't different, but lack of access to fertilizer, training, funds and labour have made it impossible for Women to match up to Men in same self field on the food production and processing chain.

Extension and advisory services would not only create room for empowerment for Women (gender equality) but also increase the yield and quality of agric materials produced by these Women and other smallholder farms.

A publication from worldbank.org makes us understand that Women provide 60-80 percent of the labor on farms in some countries although the world percentage is quoted to be lower than 50%. I know that 80% of farm products in Nigeria are transported from farm settlements to markets by Women, who go through the stress of bringing agric materials to the market. whereby some have to sit on open trucks for hours, sleep over in odd places and sit by the road under the sun while the drivers fix the battered fully loaded trucks. In some cases they get to the market with half spoilt goods. In other words they undertake 60-90% of agricultural marketing as noted by agronigeria.com.ng

Extension and advisory services can inform women about opportunity open for farmland ownership, ease of access to funds for dry season farming, educate them on the formation of clusters and cooperatives that would enable them access government subsidized seeds, manure, pesticides, fertilizers etc.

Extension and Advisory service agents can also make them understand that they can increase their income if the employ labour and increase there production using best methods to ensure increased yield. They would educated them on how Cooperative and clusters, information on new farming methodologies and harvest/storage techniques matched with same focus and commitment used overtime would increase the quantity and improve the quality of agric materials that would be produced by them and attract international firms and open channels for off takers.

In addition Extension and advisory services would encourage women to invest in agriculture, we must note that the more funds available to poor farmers and other stake holders in the agric sector the better the yield and the better the storage facilities amongst others.



A number of farmers still do not know about new varieties of seeds (improved seeds), they do not understand know that government initiatives have been setup to curb poor harvest and reduce farm production costs. A lot of women still use obsolete methods to process palm oil, when we have lots of funds specially set aside to support Women in agriculture but lack of knowhow and methods to apply and access these funds have made Women unable to match Men in terms of yield. Extension and Advisory services would go a long way to curb these issues and improve nutrition by informing them of open channels for match their numbers with output.

Furthermore Extension and Advisory services should setup workshops, seminars, trainings and boot camps to educate Women on how to carry out online sales, how to have groups in various settlements, how to access labour, farm support solutions (rent tractors for clearing, use cultivators/plows/ridges to carry out pre planting operations), improved variety of seeds, fertilizer and connect with major firms for off-taker agreements.

1. Imperative to note that the desire to educate the Women is good but the patience and tact to listen to them, understand their challenges and proffer solutions is much more important and the task is on the shoulders of Extension and Advisory Service Agents.

Also we must note that the challenge of youth participation in agriculture is one that needs fool prove correction approach, 80% of agric materials produced in Africa comes from small holder farms, most of these farms are managed by Women. Educating and empowering this Women would improve and increase yield. The average age of farmers in Africa is currently pegged at 60years despite the fact that fact 60% of Africa's population is under 24years of age (www.un.org). The Extension and Advisory Service Agents need to have prepare to encourage and educate the youths, In Nigeria for example children of farmers now work as commercial bike riders and hawkers in major towns, farming settlements are grossly depopulated, the old time farmers need to be taught new methods, serious and energetic youth farmers need to be supported, young stars need to be taught the benefits of pursuing a career in Agriculture at an early stage and food processing should be made more lucrative for local investors by improving road networks to farms, improving power supply to agro processing firms, providing funds and know how for waste recycling etc.

A lot needs to be done to realize gender equality and improve nutrition and the steps stated above can go a long way to kick start the process and sustain it.

Akinremi Julian

Agripreneur, Food, Agricultural and Environmental Engineer, Agribusiness Consultant

CEO Fourteen Farms

 

There is no doubt that AEAS can accelerate the gender equality and food and nutritional security. As per this online discussion: 1. other than  providing and facilitating access to knowledge, information and technologies,  AEAS can facilitate transfer of agricultural subsidies that include fertilizers, seeds, tools and machineries, loans, money, pesticides, etc. like WeChat Apps in China as well as online marketing of farm products and law supports in grass-root communities; 2. limited understanding of nutrition coupled with ineffective nutrition training and awareness, unclear organizational mandates, lack of interest  and resource limitations, gender bias in EAS, lack of joint planning and dialogue at all levels, lack of triangle attachment of nutritionist, gender specialist and EAS experts during policy making; 3. cultural and traditional barrier to adopt new and improved nutritional balanced diet as well as recipes by rural families.

The role and main activities should be of a global forum such as the GFRAS Nutrition Working Group:

1. Identify local, cultural and religious constrains on gender equality and find local solutions with local communities, local and religious leaders through awareness.

2. Promote nutrition and health clubs in school, universities and localities.

3. Find young minds and youth think tanks, arrange workshop, training for them on nutrition-sensitive social movement.

4. Improvise national level policy to encourage nutrition-sensitive family farming.

5. Create tools and campaigning materials for nutrition awareness among school children and develop materials for family workshop on gender-sensitivity and nutritional diet. Like others, a successful example is ‘A New Way to Eat’ is setting out to change the way Chinese kids eat through China’s first food education program built to integrate nutrition and sustainability (http://www.juccce.org/eat).

6. Engage young professionals/body within the working group to generate new ideas through empowering youths for achieving long-term outcomes.

Among the major constrains for youth empowerment in AEAS, lack of modernization and technology in-friendly methods and process is in the top. Youths of 21st century is more addicted to modern devices but in most developing countries AEAS is yet not fully integrated with high-tech devices. ‘The more you improvise the AEAS with high-tech, the more youth you can involve’. In second, policy makers and AEAS staffs in several cases are not aware to utilize youths in AEAS actions, like engaging local youth clubs, sports clubs, voluntary clubs, youth libraries, science clubs, photography clubs, etc. and developing nutrition clubs for not only promotion of gender equality and nutrition-sensitive farming but also balanced diet. Integrating local, national and regional youth bodies, clubs, NGOs could influence and enhance nutrition-sensitive movement in grass-root level.

Keeping in mind to empower youths, both INGENAES and YPARD Bangladesh are collaborating to improve skills of young professionals and mentoring them. The YPARD members from both Bangladesh and Nepal have joined in training and workshops organized by INGENAES on ‘Addressing Gender Issues in Agricultural Value Chains’, ‘Addressing gender issues in technology design, use, and dissemination’; field visits  and participation at the Regional Symposium on Integration Nutrition and Gender in Agri Extension’. Suggested reading about these events are, as blog posts:

1. cross talk between gender nutrition and agriculture extension

2. networking between youth ICT and extension better agriculture

3. Regional symposium to scale up nutrition integration in agricultural extension

4. YPARD Nepal- Steps in Capacity Building Process

5. YPARD Nepal Team on Nutrition Workshop

After more than one year of partnering, INGENAES and YPARD Bangladesh has started to setting up a national network on Agriculture for Nutrition (Ag4N) for the scientists, experts, researchers, students and young professionals who are working on nutrition-based agriculture in Bangladesh through a workshop in last May 2017 where professionals from National Agricultural Research System (NARS) and Bangladesh Agricultural University, She-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Department of Agricultural Extension and from other private, NGOs, institutes/universities had participated. The suggestions from the workshop are as follows:

1. Knowledge Creation, Knowledge Dissemination, Knowledge Updating, Knowledge Conservation by the network.
2. Recognition of best activists from young professionals.
3. Inter-university competition to showcase ideas and accomplishments.
4. Promotion of the platform through social media and other communications
5. Increase participation by individual channels.
6. Establish university based hubs and make linkages.
7. A network of YPARD units can be created within different organizations/institutions
8. Provide publication opportunities.
9. Organize workshops, conferences, trainings
10. Creating cross-cutting research opportunities
11. Provide access to contents to users & publication opportunities
12. Youth leadership development programs
13. Discussion forums with young students & professionals
14. The framework to build this network and the structure, principles and organogram were also proposed and discussed by the participants.

 (suggested reading, blog post: YPARD Bangladesh initiates Agriculture for Nutrition (Ag4N) network)

I think this forum is scheduled to wrap up tomorrow so allow me a follow-up comment to my previous comment.

It looks like my comment, which was submitted at the request of one of the moderators, has been orphaned, with no follow-up commentary. Instead the discussion continues to endorse and promote the expansion of extension services without regard to the funding available to recruit extension personnel or provide the operational needs that would allow them to be effective and reach the majority of the intended beneficiaries. Please as you promote expanded role of civil services make certain the funding is there or you will simply squander limited tax revenue funds.

Also, as I commented previously I think you need to review the message being send to assure that it is appropriate enough the beneficiaries can appreciate it. For nutrition I suggested that what improved nutrition being promoted must be affordable or producible by the beneficiaries, particularly if they are expected to engage in heavy manual labor requiring exerting 4000 kcal/day or more.

Please allow me to return to my agronomic base, the historic base for most extension programs, and challenge if the agronomic message is really suitable for the smallholder beneficiaries. There is a major problem in the agronomic technology development and transfer process. This is what I rather provocatively call the genocide oversight. Sounds horrible but unfortunately too close to the truth. Agronomic technology is typically developed through small plot research, perhaps plots only 4x6 m. This does an excellent job of determining the environmental physical potential of an area. However, it says nothing about what it will take to expand that small plot result across the rest of the field, farm or smallholder community. It just assumes it is not a problem. Basically, what is being done for the past 50 years is demanding that a poor hungry exhausted farmer, who is lucky to have access to 2000 kcal/day that will allow him to only work 3 or 4 limited diligent hours per day, put it a full day of effort requiring over 4000 kcal as mentioned above. That doesn’t work and is the reason for my provocative label of “genocide oversight”. The net result is that it takes up to eight weeks to get basic crop establishment, and rendering the wonderful research results null and void. Isn’t it a little absurd and perhaps a little arrogant to expect the hungry smallholders to be as effective in managing their farm in the same manner as the nearly unlimited resources of an experiment station or demonstration plot? Who within the technology development and dissemination process is responsible to determine the operational requirements, labor access to machinery, etc. to extend the small plot demonstration to the rest of the farm? Then determine if that labor is available and if not what are the rational compromises the farmers has to make in adjusting the research/demonstration results to their limited operational base. Perhaps they have already optimized the research result to their 8 week crop establishment time. Until this issue is address won’t the extension message continue to mostly badger farmers on information they have a good knowledge of but not the means to take advantage of. Please review the following webpage:

http://webdoc.agsci.colostate.edu/smallholderagriculture/OperationalFea…

Will this hold for nutrition promotions as well as agronomic promotions?

AEAS as well as social development workers need to keep youth’s role at center of planning in gender equality and improved nutrition. We know that education is important, however, there are lots of things missing in education in terms of soft skills (like, interpersonal skills). If a young professional has lack of competency, we cannot think that s/he will be able to deliver right message to targeted audience or how others can be benefited?

Through YPARD Nepal, in 2014, we organized “YPARD Nepal Family Farming Photo Contest”- a national level competition with the goal of giving a stronger voice to family farmers as well as the recognition they deserve for their key role in the construction of a food secured future. More than 200 submissions were received from young farmers by depicting agricultural landscapes.

In 2015, about 40 young people were actively engaged in a workshop to provide a useful starting point to expand emerging practices through sustainable intensification and creative marketing. Later in 2016, we started “EduMala Mentoring Program” where we discussed about the importance of underutilized food crops, food processing methods, food and dairy entrepreneurship. We believe, those activities are continuously helping young people in access to resources and capacity building, exchange of information and networking, and promoting food and agriculture among them. Details https://www.researchgate.net/publication/314312114_Promoting_Food_and_Nutritional_Values_among_Nepalese_Young_Minds

Agriculture extension and agriculture advisory (AEAS) connect both gender equality and nutrition knowledge together. Working directly with farmers in different settings the knowledge of nutrition and gender coordination became healthier in rural areas. It’s now common in Bangladesh that women are equally working in agriculture sector keeping pace with men but they are facing dominance to obtain equal opportunities like men. These experience helps farmers for better incomes, strengthen the role of women, improve family health and also increases the nutrition knowledge. For more agriculture productivity, information and communication technology are now expanding their technology for the betterment of agriculture. With the help of agriculture extension now farmers can connect with the new technologies and get up to date with all the important and valuable information in such short time.

• Insisting youth involvement by engaging them in practical work.
• Create more nutrition based knowledge information through technologies.
• Sharing knowledge about information and communication technology.
• Promote a nutrition based awareness knowledge.
• Exchange the ideas about new technology and food nutrition among youth.

Women are more focused in agriculture development. Women empowerment need to start from the root level and agriculture takes this one step ahead. On the other hand, women are more conscious and aware about promoting nutrition knowledge in the family.