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DISCUSSION No. 130 • FSN Forum digest No. 1249
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Transforming gender relations in agriculture through women’s empowerment: benefits, challenges and trade-offs for
improving nutrition outcomes
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until 15 July 2016
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Dear Members,
Please find below the latest contributions on
Transforming gender relations in agriculture through women’s empowerment:
benefits, challenges and trade-offs for improving nutrition outcomes.
On the
FSN Forum webpage you can also read the facilitators comments and reactions. Participants are presenting, among others, initiatives aimed at improving women's status: are these initiatives actually
helping to empower women and are they contributing to a change in attitudes and behaviours towards women and child nutrition?
This discussion is looking into how stronger women agency can improve nutritional outcomes in rural households,
and for children in particular. Please take advantage of these last days to share examples of policies and strategies to help achieve nutrition outcomes in agricultural
households, tackling issues of women's time, gender divisions of work, and involvement of women in agriculture and agribusiness value chains.
Comments are welcome in
English,
Arabic,
Chinese,
French,
Russian and
Spanish (please check the webpage in any of these languages).
Your FSN Forum team
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CONTRIBUTIONS RECEIVED
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Makesh
Maske, M S Swaminathan Research Foundation, India
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Makesh brings up the case of cotton picking in India. Women spend long hours picking cotton and this tedious and hard
work is not without ill effect. To address this issue, a special ergonomic bag was developed to facilitate the task and effectively reduce discomforts associated with this work while increasing efficiency and outputs. Since their pilot run, there has been
demand for more bags and also more of such innovations.
Read the contribution
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Abdul
Mazid, BRAC International, Bangladesh
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Adbul’s contribution revolves around the use of bio-fortified crops in Africa and a holistic approach towards trying
to get these crops adopted in the region. He believes this model can be also applied in Southern Asia and could be a gateway towards empowering women and also contributing to proper nutrition should the suitable partnerships and programmes be established.
Read the contribution
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Ghady
Chedrawi, FAO, Italy
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Ghady shares a FAO initiative led in sub-Saharan Africa where informal spaces were set up for dialogue and action at
the community level using an approach called Dimitra. These Dimitra clubs allowed for regular meetings among women where development priorities and challenges were discussed and exchanges were made with other clubs which allowed for more informed choices and
problem-solving. These were accompanied by training sessions and surveys to assess the initiative’s success. Ghady finishes her contribution by sharing a video depicting a successful Dimitra experience in the DRC.
Read the contribution
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Bhavani
R Vaidyanathan, M S Swaminathan Research Foundation, India
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Bhavani reminds us that, despite proper education and awareness for women and girls being important, men too need to
be sensitized about women’s difficulties.
Read the contribution
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Mahtab
S.Bamji, Dangoria Charitable Trust, India
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Mahtab shares with us a paper she contributed to about the nutritional benefits of introducing homestead gardens and
backyard poultry in rural Indian households. The target was pregnant women and mothers with children aged from 6 to 24 months old. The study showed promising results in terms of healthier eating habits, lower malnutrition rates, and dissemination of information
and practices among other households.
Read the contribution
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Georgina
Njiraini, Center for development research, Germany
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Georgina mentions the importance of investing in time saving technologies for women in order to allow them to prioritize
childcare and nutrition. An example of this is through investing in water infrastructure that not only saves time in fetching water but also fosters healthcare.
Read the contribution
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Md.
Sirajul Islam, BRAC, Bangladesh
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Sirajul makes a recap of recent successes in Bangladesh regarding staple food self-sufficiency, agricultural surpluses
and aquaculture but stresses that there is still much work to be done in the area of nutrition. He also mentions a government initiative for food safety which will also serve to raise awareness particularly among women who are the ones responsible for food
preparation.
Read the contribution
In his earlier contribution, Sirajul shares a BRAC initiative to promote healthy organic homestead farming. Only targeting
women, they envisage this will enhance diet diversification and improve nutritional status at household levels, which involves several hundred thousand participants.
Read the contribution
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Hira
Iftikar, University of Agriculture Faisalabad, Pakistan
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Following her previous post about the importance of malnutrition eradication among women and particularly pregnant women,
Hira makes a contribution on behalf of her colleagues and herself where she further explains the woes that malnourished pregnant women face, both in the cases of overweight (and obesity) and of underweight.
Read the contribution
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Kendar
Nath Rai, India
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Kendar deconstructs the topic into three points to be tackled: food availability, food diversity, and unhygienic living
conditions and poor water and air quality.
Read the contribution
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Charita
Jashi, Caucasus Development Group, Georgia
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Charita advocates that there is a lack of awareness of populations on food security and nutrition issues in Georgia.
Bread is the base of the Georgian diet but has few nutritional benefits and strongly depends on wheat imports. Flour fortification could be an inexpensive way to tackle nutrition issues while hopefully the economy grows with the signing of Association Agreement
between Georgia and the EU.
Read the contribution
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Anjali
Verma, Swayam Shikshan Prayog, India
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Anjali describes an initiative by her organization that targets women in landless, marginal and small farmer households
in drought-prone regions. These women are taught sustainable, low-input farming techniques along with their linkage to food security and nutrition. This in turn serves as a means of empowerment which will then lead them to become leaders, advocates, and disseminators
of this knowledge within communities and with government institutions.
Read the contribution
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Emile
Houngbo, Agricultural University of Ketou (UAK), Benin
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Emile reminds us that female empowerment is not a standalone solution for food insecurity, and sociocultural and economic
contexts of different areas are important when tackling problems related to nutrition. He also shares with us a categorization of Sub-Saharan Africa based on their food consumption habits.
Read the contribution
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Mustafa
Nangraj, Agriculture Department Government of Sindh Pakistan, Pakistan
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Mustafa shares with us a summary of his findings in Sindh, Pakistan. Having conducted surveys in rural Pakistan, women
demonstrated a want and a need for entrepreneurship training. A training center was built where women were taught how to initiate their own businesses and some were chosen also as extensions to further disseminate this knowledge. These female extension workers
were very successful in helping other women initiate their own entrepreneurships.
Read the contribution
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Kuruppacharil
V. Peter, World Noni Research Foundation, India
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Kuruppacharil makes a short intervention where he relates to some of the emerging sustainable household activities that
women can carry out. He also brings up the Panchayat system of local government as one of the ways women have been empowered in regions of India.
Read the contribution
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Ann
Steensland, Global Harvest Initiative, USA
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Ann brings up the results of a case study relevant to women’s empowerment in India, where they were taught more efficient
ways to cultivate rice. After they struggled to get their households to try these new techniques, the improvements were made clear and the whole village benefited.
Read the contribution
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