Sophia Huyer, Gender and Social Inclusion Leader
Understanding farmer uptake of
climate-smart technologies:
Gender dimensions

CCAFS Gender and Social Inclusion
• Goal: ensure that rural women benefit from CCAFS’ contribution to
poverty reduction, enhanced environmental resilience, improved
food security, human health and nutrition.
• Priority results:
 Inform, catalyze and target CSA solutions to women, youth and
vulnerable groups that do not increase their workloads
 Increase the control of women and youth over productive assets and
resources, and
 Promote their participation in decision making

Gender differences in farmer uptake of
CSA
1. Adoption of CSA technologies
and practices
2. Benefits from CSA Training
3. Access to and use of climate
information

1. Gender Differences in Adoption of CSA
• Women and men tend to have different adaptation strategies and
practices
• Different preferences in crops and uses for crops
• These depend on GDOL, differing access to and control over resources
participation in decision making and sociocultural norms
Five most common changes made by men and women to adapt to climate change

CSA Technology / practice uptake
Percent of men and women adopting CSA practices
CCAFS/IFPRI/ILRI Gender Survey 2012, in Twyman et al, 2014

CSA Technology / practice uptake

Training women in rice farming in
South Vietnam

2. Access to and use of climate
information

2. Climate information
Women need different channels and types of information (Senegal
2011, 2012)
Ghana, 2016
• 85.2% (representing 767) farmers were aware of climate change and
its implications for their agriculture and other livelihood activities, with
little difference in perception between men and women
• Gender a determinant of uptake and use of climate information: men
were 39.4% less likely to use climate information than women.

Access to climate information in Ghana
Male Female
Limited training Little or no formal education and thus inability to
read and understand the text messages sent by the
Esoko platform
The forecast information is sometimes different
from the actual weather condition
Periodically, educated community members unable
to correctly interpret text messages
Bad network connection Expensive call charges noted by farmers on Airtel
telecommunication lines when calls to the Esoko
call centre are made.
Long waiting times on calls placed to the call
center
Lack of access to mobile phones as the service is
phone based
Periodically, the translators at the Esoko call
centre are not available and they do not call back
either
Lack of means of transportation on reported market
days in various communities prevents farmers from
moving to sell farm produce

Thank you