Women empowerment can eliminate hunger
Using a gendered pathway and approach to understanding nutrition-agriculture linkages

Evidence shows that food security continues to remain a global concern. It is also widely recognised that women, with pivotal roles as farmers, mothers and caregivers, are key to eliminating hunger and poverty. Malnourished farmers are less productive, so putting a nutrition lens on an agricultural investment can also improve gender equity, because it shifts focus toward the labor, income control, and time use of women.

Hunger and under-nutrition arise from multiple, interactive causes (eg, food consumption, health care, agricultural production, employment opportunities, women’s status).  Therefore, integrated strategies that combine care, health, and agriculture can confer a range of other benefits in addition to improved nutritional outcomes.  More research in this area may have a high pay off, and more extended data would be useful to address such research.

The ICRISAT Village Level Studies (VLS) now called the Village Dynamics Studies in South Asia, offer a unique opportunity to examine the gender implications of changes in production systems over time, especially focusing on nutrition.  The existing panel data for six villages in SAT India, from 1975-84 and 2001 onwards, captures and documents the changes in the farming systems and rural households.  Building on this dataset, new panel data is being generated to examine change over time on key gender-related and health, nutrition and institutional issues.  Ultimately, empowerment of women will be measured using new data and strategies to reduce the gender parity gap.

This research covers eight villages of SAT India from 1975 to the present, and therefore has a spatial and temporal dimension.  The enhanced data will include data on gender-related issues, nutrition-health-sanitation and institutions, along with economic, household expenditure, and farming related data (different production environments/systems) from the same households.

Increased production does not necessarily translate into nutritional outcomes, nor will it change diet behavior. Hence this will be a one stop shop of data, wherein linkages can be established or explored between malnutrition and household expenditures, household income,  empowerment , mechanization and reduced calorie intakes, and so on.

The data collecting team is using an analytical approach known as the Q2 methodology, which both collects as well as analyses the data to identify the nutrition-agriculture linkages using a gender pathway.  This study puts social relations at the heart of gender dynamics in agriculture.  The data and the analysis will therefore allow exploration of the nuances in these linkages, which are gender-sensitive, nutrition-oriented agriculture strategies to improve nutrition.   Adopting a mixed-method approach, the surveys (qualitative and quantitative) will interview women, men, boys and girls of various castes and classes.   Additionally, documentation of detailed registries of all individuals in the village and their families and business associates, capturing key transactions and relationships within and outside the village, will allow innovative quantitative and qualitative analysis of social networks.  Another layer of analysis to this will use some meso-level indicators of nutrition and gender, which will link micro-level insights and analysis with macro/meso level findings on gender and nutrition.  Grass-level insights using social-analysis tools and Participatory Rural Appraisals  will complement the quantitative findings and results. 

For more information contact R.Padmaja@cgiar.org

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Linking farmers to research
Using ICT to carry scientific knowledge to rural communities

To realize a food-secure world, millions of resource-poor small farms in developing countries need to significantly raise their agricultural productivity, become resilient to shocks and seize opportunities to increase their incomes. This can happen if farmers can access and effectively use the right information at the right time. Modern day information and communication technology (ICT) can play a significant role in extension efforts with improved efficiency and real-time advice. To meet the challenge of providing smallholders in India and sub-Saharan Africa with information, ICRISAT opened a Center of Excellence (COE) in ICT innovations for agriculture to link research, extension and markets.

The COE has developed many information systems, for example, in southern India internet-equipped village knowledge centers and mobile mediated voice communication platforms provide up-to-date information on best farming practices, including drought vulnerability maps, climate adaptation methods, crop rotation, diversification and pest management for crops such as millet or sorghum. These platforms have helped around 46,000 farmers in 21 villages in one of the poorest regions of south central India, including women, become more food secure and resilient to drought.   “Earlier we used to take advice from the shop dealer on mixing of pesticides,” explains Satyanarayana Reddy, a farmer from Jaanampeta village. “With ICRISAT’s information advisory service we are able to measure the accurate dosage. It saves money.” says Narmadamma of the ICRISAT ICT Rural Hub.Plans are currently underway to replicate and expand the voice message model across Asia and Africa through a financially sustainable public-private partnership model.

Providing free web-based access to research is another priority. Holding about 6000 research documents, including journal articles, conference papers, theses and monographs, an Open Access Repository launched by ICRISAT provides an easy interface for researchers, practitioners and web-connected farmers to use, build on and share research conducted at ICRISAT. Since its creation in May 2011 more than 144,000 documents have been downloaded by people from more than 70 countries, with around 6,000 unique users visiting the Repository every month.

ICRISAT uses the ICT enabled virtual knowledge series platform (called the KSI Connect platform) to share fascinating stories and interesting research projects with in-house and global audiences. This platform allows experts across the globe to share their project experiences and cutting-edge research activities contributing to global food security. With KSI Connect, all agricultural stakeholders now have direct access to the most knowledgeable technical experts and the latest scientific innovations in agriculture, without ever having to travel or interrupt their daily activities. Since its launch in July 2012, more than 100 videos have been hosted on this platform and the KSI Connect website receives more than 3,000 users every month from 65 countries.

The rise of new ICT devices such as tablets and smart phones will certainly create new opportunities for user-friendly information about quality inputs and market access to reach farmers. They will also create job opportunities for info-entrepreneurs that can create crucial added value for farmers. Current research on “Krishi Gyan Sagar”and “Krishi Vani” (http://ksiconnect.icrisat.org/launching-of-krishi-gyan-sagar-kgs-and-krishi-vani-an-innovative-extension-system/) is providing insight into how a sustainable ‘backbone communication network’ can be developed to improve the quality and convenience of information (crop, market, weather and user’s choice) dissemination to smallholder farmers and transparency within the value chains, and we look forward to the day when ICT becomes as familiar a tool to farmers as a sickle and a hoe was to their ancestors.

For more information contact g.dileepkumar@cgiar.org

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We are pleased to announce that we are aligning our two scientific e-newsletters SATrends and SASA. This will make it easier for readers to access just one source for the articles and updates. We will keep the title SATrends, and this will now come to you three times a year, in April, August and December. Your feedback is always welcome.  – Amit Chakravarty, Editor, A.Chakravarty@cgiar.org

Photographs: ICRISAT