Integrating gender considerations into
livestock genetic improvement programs in
low to middle income countries
Karen Marshall, Nicoline de Haan, Alessandra Galiè
The International Livestock Research Institute
Presented at the Association for the Advancement of Animal
Breeding and Genetics Armidale, Australia; 28 October 2019

Brief introduction to gender and
why it affects agricultural
development outcomes

Gender dynamics
Gender dynamics are the ways in which boys, girls,
women, and men relate and interact
Informed by:
➢ socio-cultural ideas about what it means to be a man,
women, boy or girl;
➢ what are considered to be appropriate behaviours/jobs for
each group;
➢ and the power relationships that define these groups.
Depend on other social factors:
➢ ethnicity, wealth, marital status, age, household position etc.
Gender norms

Gender equality
Gender equality is achieved when women and men
enjoy the same rights and opportunities across all
sectors of society, including economic participation
and decision-making, and when the different
behaviours, aspirations and needs of women and
men are equally valued and favoured.
(European institute for gender equality)

Gender equality & agricultural development
outcomes
Gender responsiveness in
agricultural development
programs results in:
➢ interventions that are
more likely to be adopted
and beneficial
➢ enhanced equality of
outcomes

Integrating gender considerations into
livestock genetic improvement programs

Framework
Key stages for integration of gender considerations
into livestock genetic improvement strategies
Targeting
Choice of
genetic
improve-
ment
strategy
Implemen-
tation of
the genetic
improve-
ment
strategy
Adoption
and use of
the
improved
genetics
Ensuring
equitable
benefit
from the
improved
genetics
Discussed in terms of concepts & examples –
often overlapping issues

Targeting - concepts
Targeting = where, with and for whom, species focus etc.
Important in LMIC due to large number of livestock systems that
would benefit from improved genetics
Gender considerations include:
➢ women and men livestock-keepers can differ in their reasons
for keeping, preferences around, aspirations for, and benefits
from, different livestock species, breeds, and traits.

Example - Somaliland pastoralists
(Marshall et al. 2014 and 2016)
Gender differentiated livestock keeping
objectives – affected trait preferences

Example - chicken in Ethiopia
(Ramasawmy et al. 2018)
Women Men
Preferred
system
Remaining at
backyard /
household
Intensified /
business oriented
Traits of
interest
Feathers; behavior
→ preferences
affected breed
adoption
Production (eggs,
meat); health;
marketing related
Women did not want to intensify due to:
▪ the high labour requirements (mostly women’s responsibility);
▪ lack of assets to intensify – land, access to credit
▪ loss of control over the benefits provided by chickens when, with
intensification, men took on the marketing of the birds.

Choice, implementation, adoption-
concepts
Gender considerations include:
➢ who can participate in the breeding program
➢ who in the household can make decision to engage / invest in specific genetic
technologies
➢ investment levels (labour, payments of costs) by whom vis-à-vis expected
benefits by whom
➢ incentives may differ depending on who is involved
➢ who can access information and technologies etc.
More productive breeds often
require higher investments (e.g.
feed, health) → this may exclude
poorer farmers, who are mostly
rural women
Women, in comparison to men:
- have less access to information,
credit, inputs and markets
- have reduced mobility

Example – goats in Tanzania kept by Maasai
pastoralists (Galiè and Kantor 2016)
Breed substitution from indigenous to
exotic goat breeds
▪ Labour shift from men to women because
the goats were to be kept in the courtyard,
a space assigned to women
▪ Men remained decision makers on the
exotic breed
▪ Women had increased access to goats milk
Illustration from “A Different Kettle of Fish?”
An Ololili

Example – dairy cattle in Senegal
(Marshall et al., 2017)
Male
Herding / animal care /
milking / animal sale
Female Processing & sale of milk
Division on labour, decision making,
payment of cost, control of benefits
This affects incentives …
men’s concern re milk yield,
women’s re animal sale price

Example – gender norms in Tanzania
(Galie et al, 2017)
Gender norms reduced women’s mobility as
well as access to services and livestock markets
Decision maker on
whether a vet will be
used
Has sick animal:
Unable to reach vet due to
lack of mobility, lack of
mobile phone
Insists on consent from husband
prior to treating animal

Ensuring equitable benefit from the
improved genetics - concepts
Equity of benefits affects adoption and continued participation,
also many other outcomes (e.g. nutritional)
Gender considerations include:
➢ Shift in benefits from women to men as household
enterprises that benefit women become increasingly
commercially oriented (Galiè and de Haan 2019)

Example – dairy cattle in Senegal
(Marshall et al., 2017)
Control of income from the sale of milk shifted from women
to men as market orientation increases - associated with the
adoption of higher milk yield breed-types
Market
orien-
tation
Control of income from the sale of milk
% Women % Men % Joint
Low 72% 27% 1%
Medium 45% 50% 5%

Concluding remarks
Targeting
Choice of
genetic
improve-ment
strategy
Implemen-
tation of the
genetic
improve-
ment strategy
Adoption and
use of the
improved
genetics
Ensuring
equitable
benefit from
the improved
genetics
Analysis with a gender (or intersectional) lens
Gender accommodative or gender transformative approaches
Collaboration with gender scientists

Gender equality
Same support
but unequal
results
Equity
Support given
according to
needs
Equality
Structural
barriers
removed
Equality +
Structural
barriers and
gender norms
removed

This presentation is licensed for use under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence.
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