Given by Maria Jones at the Mechanization & Postharvest Opportunities for Smallholders in Sustainable Agriculture Symposium in July 2016.

1. You are a small holder farmer in rural
Uganda.
It is Friday afternoon.
What has your day been like?
© Maria Jones, Uganda 2016

2. Grace
5 children
• Up at 5 am
• Takes care of Children
• Takes care of goats
• Works in the farm (all
before 10 am)
• Fetches Water
• Gathers Firewood
• Cooks lunch by 1 pm
• Brings water for the cattle
• Grazes the cattle
• Rests
• Cooks dinner
• Prays with the family
• Has dinner
• Cleans dishes
• Goes to Bed by 10 pm
© Maria Jones, Uganda 2016

3. Peter
7 children
• Up at 5 am
• Works in the farm
before 10 am
• Grazes Cattle
• Has lunch
• Grazes cattle
• Rests at home
• Goes to town or
trading center with a
friend
• Buys tea or paraffin
• Has dinner that wife
has prepared around
8 pm
• Prays with family
• Goes to bed by 10pm
© Maria Jones, Uganda 2016

4. Maria Jones
Mechanization & Postharvest Opportunities for Smallholders in Sustainable
Agriculture Symposium
July 22, 2016
Extension and Technologies
A Gender Perspective

5. Why Extension?
“Investing in
extension so that
it helps more
farmers in more
places – women as
well as men,
smallholders and
commercial
farmers – is the
only way to reap
the full benefit of
innovation.”
Bill Gates, Gates Letter
2015
© Bhawna Thapa, Nepal 2016

6. Why Gender?
Women
43%
Men
57%
AGRICULTURE LABOR FORCE
IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
If women and men farmers were given equal access to
resources and services, agricultural output in
developing countries could increase by 2.5-4%
Source: FAO, 2011 http://www.fao.org/gender/Infographic/en/

7. Access to land
• Ownership and tenure
Access to credit
• Disparity in the percentage of female-headed
households who access credit compared to their male-
led counterparts
Access to inputs and technologies
• Reason behind differences in yields between men and
women farmers
Access to extension services
• Cultural attitudes, discrimination and a lack of
recognition of women’s roles in in food production
Access to markets
• Infrastructure and cultural constraints
Autonomy and agency in decision-making
• Women have a traditionally limited role
Major Gender Gaps in Agriculture
© Andrea Bohn, Bangladesh 2015

8. • Agricultural technologies can increase women’s
agricultural productivity and improve nutritional
outcomes
• Few technologies are designed and disseminated to
address both men’s and women’s needs and preferences
Gender and AgriculturalTechnologies
“A technology development process which is so
structured that technical innovations in food cropping
simply do not reach a major portion of the farming
community makes very little sense.” Jiggins, 1986

9. Assess whether agricultural technologies are gender-
responsive and nutrition-sensitive in terms of design, use
and dissemination.
Technology Assessments
Consequences on
time and labor
Influence in
adoption of
technology
Change in the
amount or control
of income
Effect on nutritional
outcomes
(availability, quality)

10. Technology Assessments
• Recommendations to make
technologies more
attractive to men and
women farmers
• Design distribution models
for extension agents and
input suppliers to get the
technologies into men’s and
women’s hands
• Increase men’s and
women’s benefits from the
use of technologies
© Andrea Bohn, Bangladesh 2015

11. Profile : Langstroth Beehive in Bangladesh
• Designed to facilitate bee health, be
easy to use and maximize honey
production
• Participants are trained in groups
using a Farmer Field School approach
by Bangladesh Small and Cottage
Industries Corporation (BSCIC)
• Although seen as a culturally
acceptable profession for men and
women, only 20% of training
participants were women
• Does not require land ownership –
an advantage for the landless
• Center also sells beehives.
Government gives loans
© Jan Henderson, Bangladesh 2015

12. INCOME & ASSETS
• Increase in income since
beekeeping (Tk200,000)
• Men were more knowledgeable
about the exact increase in
income than women
• Women sell from their own
homes instead of owning a
storefront
• Women have control over
income when the men are
engaged in moving the bees
Profile : Langstroth Beehive in Bangladesh
TIME AND LABOR
• Division of labor changes with
different bee-keeping seasons
• Need to travel with the bees.
Design has portable hives, but
mobility a barrier for women
• During the moving season,
women take up activities that
were previously not socially
acceptable
• During the off season, women
take care of the bees and check
for parasites or bee ailments

13. Profiles :Treadle Pumps in Zambia
• Men and women farmers
stated that amount of crops
for sale and consumption
increased
• Women reported greater
availability of time but
complained about the
amount of energy required
to pump
• Higher proportion of
women learned about the
pumps through friends,
while men learned through
the project
More information:
http://ingenaes.illinois.edu/apply/technology-profiles/ Image Source: Kickstart international

14. See and treat both men and
women farmers as clients
Evaluate the impact of
services and technology on
reducing gender disparities in
agricultural productivity
Adapt gender-responsive
techniques and methods to
the local context
Account for time and mobility
constraints
Adapt to different levels of
education and literacy
Use Farmer groups to deliver
services
Increase the proportion of
women extension officers
Equip all extension officers
with the knowledge and skills
to address men and women
farmers equitably
Gender-Responsive Solutions

15. This presentation was produced as part of the United States Agency
for International Development (USAID) and US Government Feed the
Future project “Integrating Gender and Nutrition within Extension
and Advisory Services” (INGENAES) under the Leader with Associates
Cooperative Agreement No. AID-OAA-LA-14-00008. The University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is the prime awardee, and partners
with the University of California-Davis, the University of Florida, and
Cultural Practice, LLC. www.ingenaes.illinois.edu
This presentation was made possible by the generous support of the
American people through USAID. The contents are the responsibility
of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or
the United States government.
© INGENAES
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© Maria Jones, Uganda 2016

16. • More about INGENAES: http://ingenaes.illinois.edu/
• Resources that we have published thus far:
http://ingenaes.illinois.edu/library/
• Pilot testing of the Technology Assessment tool:
http://ingenaes.illinois.edu/apply/technology-profiles/
• MEAS (2013) Reducing the Gender Gap in Ag Extension
services: http://dev.meas.illinois.edu/wp-
content/uploads/2015/04/Manfre-et-al-2013-Gender-and-
Extension-MEAS-Discussion-Paper.pdf
• FAO (2016)The female face of farming (infographic)
http://www.fao.org/gender/Infographic/en/
Resources