RE: Are agriculture programs supporting women to improve their livelihood? | Eval Forward

[Contribution originally shared through the Gender and Evaluation Community of Pratice, where this discussion is cross-posted https://gendereval.ning.com/forum/topics/join-the-discussion-on-women-and-agriculture-on-evalforward]

1. What are the lessons learnt from agriculture programs with regards to the activities of the women in the agricultural sector?  

A recent assessment on the status of women from diverse groups of communities in accessing agricultural services and sharing benefits in market sector, implemented by USAID funded KISAN II project, reports   on emerging opportunities to engage women in a much broader way in terms of involvement in commercial agriculture and market systems. Even the private sectors in general recognize that women are easier group to engage for market expansion than many marginalized groups which are often seen as requiring more work or entail more ‘risk’. However due to discriminatory social norms and values restrict women’s mobility in certain specific communities under religious and cultural systems. For example, the Muslim women are the most restricted in mobility due to their cultural and social norms. The study also points out to the need to develop special strategies by agricultural development programmes to include programme on gender /social awareness (sensitization) to discourage discriminatory gender norms as one priority activity which must include appropriate institutional accountability to ensure that M&E system address that improvements in participation, leadership, empowerment are measured and reported through qualitative assessment of gender impacts along with quantitative evidences.    

2. Which recommendations by evaluators have made (or could have made) a positive difference in the farming practices as well as the livelihood of these women and their families?  

Involvement of women farmers in Farmers Field Schools, Leader farmers’ role and in managing agricultural cooperatives through specially focused programmes have resulted in enhanced economic advancement of women farmers. Nevertheless, this empowerment has yet to become reflected in advancing women and men’s equal power sharing regarding decisions regarding productive resources, e.g., land and agricultural products. Another most common important recommendation frequently given by evaluators is to provide women farmers appropriate technology to save time and labour. The countries providing such alternate technologies definitely can claim an increase in production of agricultural goods as well as improving household nutrition and well-being . In this regard, Nepal remains far behind compared to some other countries in Asian region. Although there is an increasing concern on providing support to develop climate resilient agricultural approaches, yet there is a low  priority on providing such appropriate technologies in the remote areas . Contiguous research and services are  preconditions for the mountain farmers as of immediate action. Another strategic recommendation forwarded by majority gender assessment is that of creating alternate system of land ownership so that women can take economic decisions without any fear of loosing control over household resources. The relationship of agriculture development programmes to that of raising awareness and status of household nutrition is very important.  Many agriculture development programmes seldom address such coordination. The Global Agriculture and Food Security support project (GAFSP)” implemented in several countries, (funded by World Bank) has established certain examples in Nepal that of coordination among Department of Health, Livestock, Agriculture to operationalize the project where agricultural development activities are implemented through Village mothers Health groups involved in UNICEF’s “Thousand golden days of motherhood”. The programme strategy was also influenced by already proven successful programme of combining home gardening with behavioural change in nutritional food intake on Suahara (healthy meal) introduced by Hellen Keller International and scaled up by various organizations including Save the Children in Nepal.  

A useful recommendation usually given by evaluators for developing and engaging female extension  staff for effective communication between service providers and women farmers, has not yet been practiced by government agencies to a satisfactory level. Also due to lack of institutional coordination between irrigation and agriculture departments hinders the overall outcome in agricultural production which ultimately impacts household economy and well being. 

3. To what extent have the programs empowered the women?  

In many cases, by default women farmers are taking leadership in agriculture production and cooperative management. However in most cases it relates to their labour participation. Their secondary position in household decisions make them dependent on the formal marketing matters. Empowerment of women happening differently for women from different socio -cultural contexts, by age, marital status, religious background and in some cases, by educational level. An overall view is that although participation of women farmers in agriculture development programmes has increased, their participation in policy development , planning and monitoring is not ensured by majority programmes; this is what must be addressed as a serious gap during designing and implementing agriculture development programmes. The voice of the marginalized women farmers need to be documented and responded in all agriculture research, monitoring and evaluation in order to measure gender transformative changes. 

4. Have the programs encouraged and supported women to become entrepreneurs, moving from subsistence to commercial farming?  

Programs have introduced leased farming for the small holders, landless and excluded groups, including women. Women are encouraged to participate in the value chain processes. Nonetheless, efforts are rather initiated by donor supported development projects. The mis term and Final Evaluations usually recommend for strengthening empowerment aspects, which does not normally reflect in upscaling of the lessons of successes on women’s empowerment. Institutional transformation on women empowerment is weak which eventually impacts the achievement of women empowerment in agricultural market sector related decisions. Women demonstrate leadership in informal subsistence level farming . Although agricultural cooperatives provide an avenue for improving commercialization part by women. However in absence of gender transformative institutional culture, women often fail to obtain appropriate services, technology, resources and information to play a significant role in the commercial farming. Thus it can be said that women empowerment has been a slogan for some actors in agriculture which needs to be translated into practical behaviour among institutions , most importantly at household level by removing all the structured barriers against women’s decisions making over productive assets and resources. There is a serious need to consolidate the efforts to mainstream empowerment into commercial agriculture systems.       

5. Are the initiatives of agriculture programs more male focused than female focused? Should programs be gender free or gender focused? 

Thee is a mixed realization in the agriculture sector development programmes of focusing on women and men. For labour related activities women are focused and when there will be any important consultations, meetings for agricultural planning, budgeting and institutional arrangements for service providers, women are formally excluded and men are focused. The excuses given in general are that women do not have time to attend such consultations. The distance of meetings venues also fails to attract women, who usually are responsible for household work management. Another excuse often seem to be that women cannot rad and write the formal documents. The crux of the problem is that women’s role as the PRIMARY FARMER has yet to be formally recognised and established at all levels and for all activities. This role must be rationalized on the basis of the share of workload and existing indigenous knowledge of the farmers in every field of agriculture. Thus programms should be designed as “gender focused” in order to address the deep rooted issues of power discriminations at the household, community and service provider institutions.    

 

Some citation from Farnworth, C.R., Jafry, T., Lama, K., Nepali, S.C., & Badstue, L. (2017). From working in the wheat field to managing wheat: Women innovators in Nepal. 

The key actors in rural advisory services remain prey to believing in myths that cast women only as helpers in farming, or as managing the home. This in turn creates difficulties for women attempting to obtain training, finance, and other mechanisms for making their participation in innovation processes easier. Distinguishing between widely held norms and the reality of what is actually happening is essential. Gender norms remain important because they help to structure expectations of what men and women should do, but in myriad ways these norms are being ‘hollowed out’ and renegotiated in ways which support important local values yet allow the freedoms necessary to move forward and develop capacity to innovate. Understanding, recognising, and building on change processes is essential if innovation processes in wheat are to be supported by researchers, policy-makers, development partners and rural advisory services. Suggestions to break conceptual lock-in for researchers, rural advisory services and development partners are provided below. 

“The potential areas of enquiry include: How do women develop formal and informal support innovation networks with other women and other networks? In what ways do women exercise their decision-making power in intra-household discussions with their spouses, and extended family, in order to innovate? How can men, including men decision-makers at community level, be encouraged to support women as innovators? How are gender norms shifting to accommodate women as innovators, and are changes to norms likely to be institutionalised?”   C. R. Farnworth et al. 

Kanchan Lama

Gender specialist and member of the Gender and Evaluation CoP

Nepal