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Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Collaborative Research on Sustainable Intensification

Tag: gender

A Cambodian University Student’s Research Helps Improve Animal Clinic

Posted on by Andra Williams 

Ban Naiheak, BSc in Veterinary Medicine at the Royal University of Agriculture (RUA), Cambodia, shows off the E.Coli bacteria she colonized in Microbiology Lab at RUA.

Ban Naiheak, a 22-year-old student at the Royal University of Agriculture, moved from a rural province in Cambodia to live with her aunt in Phnom Penh in order to pursue her education. Ms. Naiheak is majoring in Veterinary Medicine and she has just completed her research for her thesis and is ready to defend. Her research topic is “Antimicrobial Resistance Profiles Found in a Case Study of Escherichia Coli (E. Coli) from Cohabitant Pets and Environment at Animal Clinic in Phnom Penh.”

Ms. Naiheak is considered to be one of the more promising students in her cohort, according to many of her professors, and has been able to continue her studies thanks to a grant from CE SAIN in March 2019, funded by USAID though the Sustainable Intensification Innovation Lab (SIIL) at Kansas State University.

“I was not so sure if my thesis research could continue since it needed huge financial support and I would definitely have had to change the topic to be simpler […], but my thesis was made possible because my application for grant thesis support was accepted. I was so happy to hear that,” she stated.

In addition to studying, Ms. Naiheak worked as a part-time administrator at the university. During the first stage of her thesis research, she volunteered at an animal clinic to collect samples from puppies for three months. Seeing that  she was so busy with her schoolwork, the university gave her permission to take a three-month break from work to focus on her research. Ms. Naiheak has said that the past three months were a hard time for her, however, it was a great opportunity to learn new knowledge and gain experience outside of the classroom. She also received great support from her supervisors and assistance with her research through their advice, She was also able to come and work in the microbiology lab as often she needed.

Her thesis has two main objectives: firstly, she wants to research the the presence of E. coli bacterial resistance in puppies and the animal clinic environment. Secondly, she wants to find out what types of existing treatments currently available can effectively treat puppies afflicted with E. coli bacterial infections. She says that the bacteria could be transmitted from the puppies to the environment, and even humans. When humans become exposed to the same kind of resistant bacteria, it came become very hard to treat. “My research is not a big topic that [will help all of] society,” she said, “but it will help the animal clinic to have a deeper understanding of this certain issue and help provide [people with] the research documentation that they can go and read.”

Ban Naiheak performs tests on bacteria in the Microbiology Lab at RUA.

Ms. Naiheak did encounter some challenges when the results of her research did not match to her hypothesis. In once instance during her research, she chose her sample from puppies that had diarrhea and was under three months old. She expected the result to be positive for the E. coli bacteria, but it came back negative. She will need to defend her findings and explain to the thesis committee the reasons  for these differences. She says that knowing the history of the puppies’ background is very important and it helps to understand why the puppies got sick.

Naiheak wishes to pursue her master degree and do in-depth research on E. coli bacteria and how it can effect the environment and humans. At the moment, she is not sure of her eventual career goals, but she would like to find a job where she can share her knowledge and experience with other people.

 “I would like to say thank you very much to CE SAIN and USAID for providing this grant to support undergraduate students on our research theses. Your support [has been] a big contribution to make our thesis research happen. Without your support, my preferred topic for the research thesis would not [have] happened. –Ban Naiheak

-Submitted by Manel Mao, CE SAIN Program Manager

Bridging the Gap: Connecting Women in Research, Farming and the Peace Corps

Posted on by Andra Williams 
 Photo Credit: LaTrese Taylor

I remember vividly that a desire to travel and have a career in social programs was borne from my grandmother’s dreams, conversations with her, and the humble way in which she lived her life. Up until middle school, our household did not have a television, so listening to the radio led us into countless discussions on social topics in the United States and abroad. Our immediate family gave to churches, to other family members and friends, and of course, to organizations such as “Feed the Children”, which worked extensively in Africa.

Fast-forward thirty-five years. I am now a military retiree and reflecting on a family dynamic that brought an awareness of needs outside of my community and the United States, and making a transition into international development felt like the natural next step, only I didn’t know what that looked like until Peace Corps (PC) Senegal began their work with Kansas State University’s Sustainable Intensification and Innovation Lab (SIIL). In 2018, PC Senegal, SIIL and the Institut Sénégalais de Recherches Agricoles (ISRA) partnered together to demonstrate new agricultural technology and innovations in the fields of PC/Senegal’s Master Farmers. Under this program, Senegalese graduate student Khady Diome came to Keur Bakary, a small village in Senegal, to lead a research site.  She worked on testing millet and fertilizer varieties as well as seed-spacing techniques in the fields of three local farmers.

In conferences and one-on-one discussions, what echoed in my head time and again is that there needs to be an intermediary with the ability to connect more research and pilot projects to government organizations and institutions, as well as smallholder farmers, without a long lead-time. With this trifecta partnership, we are building synergies that will be able to breach this paradigm and, in turn, Master Farmers like Chiekh Dieng can work with researchers to identify more readily technology that has been tailored to his community’s farming practices and challenges, but with “scaled up” benefits for the broader Senegalese farming system.


ISRA researcher Khadi Diome and Master Farmer Chiekh Dieng 
Photo Credit: LaTrese Taylor

As I prepare to wrap up my third year with Peace Corps Senegal, I plan to return to American University in Washington D.C. to pursue a Master’s Degree in International Development, with focus in West African Food Security, armed with the hands-on experience in working with researchers. Working with PC Senegal to manage this partnership also gave me a birds-eye view of what research-led youth development looks like in Senegal, and how research that incorporates nutrition-led agriculture, can fit into the greater system. In this particular scenario, my primary role was creating the linkage between the smallholder farmer and the researcher, and while it may have been a small role, it was still one with a potentially large impact in making these type of relations more customary in the future. This theme obviously warrants more discussion and work, and I plan continue working in the international development community to see how that unfolds and how I can contribute to its growth.

 

LaTrese Taylor

Food Security Peace Corps Volunteer Leader

Peace Corps Senegal 2016-2019

What mechanization means to women: Case studies from polder communities of Coastal Bangladesh

Posted on by Andra Williams
Farmer to farmer training on mechanical harvesting using rice reaper

Poor road networks, waterlogging, canal networks, and undulating topography are considered barriers to agricultural mechanization in this coastal region. Additionally, the limited agricultural mechanization that does exist in the coastal zone, mostly two-wheeled tractors, are mainly operated by men. Most farmers in the polders cultivate a single low-yielding rice crop in a year, and agriculture is considered as a low-input, low-risk business. Generally, poor and landless women are engaged in the annual rice harvest on family-cultivated land and on neighboring farms as wage-earning day laborers. During rice harvest, which is done mostly in December, women can work for up to 8-9 hours daily.The rapidly growing economy of Bangladesh has fueled demand for labor in non-agricultural sectors, resulting in a scarcity of rural agricultural workers. This has driven wages up and is affecting farm productivity and profitability. Although women have always played a critical role in the agricultural sector, their identity has historically been only that of unpaid family labor, with the widespread perception that women’s roles in farming are limited to the homestead and some postharvest operations. However, in the polders of the coastal zone, women are involved in almost all agricultural activities, in addition to all their other household duties. The women also face several constraints, such as restricted access to inputs, resources (land and labor), assets (machinery and equipment), and services (extension and advice, financial loans), which restrict them from playing a leading role in most activities.

As a part of the SIIL (Sustainable Intensification Innovation Lab)-Polder Project, mechanical harvesting, using a reaper, was introduced to small and marginalized farmers to ease the physical burden on women and increase their contribution to household earnings. The project organized hands-on training, in collaboration with the ACI Motors Ltd., on using the reaper for 450 men and 377 women for three cropping years from the 2016 monsoon season to  the 2019 dry season. The team then worked closely with four women who showed a strong interest in learning how to use the reapers as a business venture. The project purchased one reaper for them to work with. Of these, two, Nomita Golder and Madhuri Mondal, actually used the reapers as a way to make additional money in the first year (Fig. 1). In a follow-up interview with the women, they provided additional information on how the use of mechanization improved their livelihoods. For example, Nomita worked 22 days during the previous season to manually harvest rice paddies and she earned BDT 6,000 (USD 72). Using the reaper not only reduced her drudgery, but also saved significant time. Both young women reckoned that it generally took 48 hours to manually harvest a 1-acre paddy field while it could be harvested in only 3 hours with the reaper. With the time saved and the money earned using the reaper, the women were able to contribute to their respective family’s income by buying and raising livestock and poultry and by providing child care services or tutoring the children of neighboring families in addition to their harvesting activities.

As the project has only one machine, which was used extensively for training and demonstrations at an early stage of the harvesting period, Nomita and Madhuri were able to use the machine for only a few days to provide harvesting services to other farmers. In order to accommodate the lack of additional reapers, the women, instead of harvesting all day, both decided to work in the field during the morning hours only, which was sufficient for them to harvest the area that they used to harvest in 5 to 6 days. In the afternoons, Nomita could then continue providing child-care services to neighborhood families. Using the reaper helped her earn money in a shorter time while continuing other income-generating activities. Madhuri spent the extra time on family care and some time for herself. Having some leisure time has significant implications on women’s health and well-being. Spending more time on family care, particularly children, contributes significantly to overcoming the household’s nutrition and health challenges.

After assessing the interest of women, the project purchased one more reaper and provided Madhuri Mondal and Shipra Biswas to harvest paddy in the subsequent years (Nomita Golder was not able to continue service provision after 2016 due to poor health). Madhuri Mondal was able to earn BDT 82,838 (USD 1035) after five seasons and while  Shipra’s net income in four seasons was BDT 62,688 (USD 784). Due to less drudgery, they devoted more time in mechanical harvesting to earn more for family’s welfare. Madhuri used her earnings for children’s education, daughter’s marriage and purchasing a cow that is providing nutrition to her family; while Shipra used the earnings to get back her father’s (deceased) mortgaged land, purchased  goats and a sewing machine with which she started a tailoring business.

Although there is a long way to go, mechanization has shown promise in helping increase household income, reducing women’s drudgery, and improving their health and overall household well-being. Without mechanization, women either need to spend significantly more time on manual harvesting as wage laborers to meet the expenses of the family or reduce their family expenses, which might include stopping the education of their children or limiting other important family needs.

The success of this service provision model using mechanization depends on awareness, training, and access to credit to purchase machines, among other aspects. Although the capital needed to purchase the machines is seen as a major limitation, it can probably be addressed through pooled community investment in conjunction with existing organizational structures such as water management groups or through loans from self-help groups/ NGOs. Linking these groups to financial institutions might also be an option in the future. The government has introduced about 50 to 70% subsidies to acquire agricultural machinery. Linking women to these subsidies will help empower them and move the country closer to ensuring food security and better family health.

Rokhsana Parvin Ratna, Sudhir Yadav, Manoranjan Mondal,  Ranjitha Puskur, and Krishna Jagadish

Reprinted from: Polder Tidings  V2(2) page 8-9.

Gender Sensitivity Training in Burkina Faso

Posted on by kmtully
Gender sensitivity training in Burkina Faso
The ADM Institute is a funding partner for the Appropriate Scale Mechanization Consortium, a subaward of the USAID-funded Sustainable Intensification Innovation Lab (SIIL) based at Kansas State University.Maria Jones recently joined the USAID-funded Appropriate Scale Mechanization Consortium (ASMC) team from INGENEAES. The Feed the Future project Integrating Gender and Nutrition within Agricultural Extension Services (INGENAES) is also housed in the College of ACES within the AgReach program at the University of Illinois.

In June, Tim Rendall, ASMC project manager, and Jones traveled to Burkina Faso to meet with the in-country team and work with a team of faculty and students to conduct a gender analysis of the ASMC’s planter technology. In addition, Jones and Rendall trained in-country staff on gender integration, using a participatory training approach developed by INGENAES known as the Introductory Gender in Agricultural Activities training.

Using adult learning principles such as role-playing, small group drawing, and demonstrations, the one-day workshop helped faculty, students, and ASMC partners in Burkina Faso explore complex and deep-rooted practices, including roles and responsibilities of men and women in rural households, and who has “power” in local households and societies. The training also helped participants look at ways in which men and women participate in different agricultural value chains.

The technology assessment toolkit used by Jones in the five-day technology assessment workshop was designed by Cultural Practice LLC within the INGENAES project. While technologies can improve the timing of agricultural tasks and reduce drudgery, technologies are not inherently gender neutral Mechanization projects need to consider that if mechanized tools are introduced, cultural norms might dictate that men might be the ones who own or control their use. Jones explains that conducting a gender analysis acts as a first step to help researchers determine if a technology is working for its intended purpose to benefit both men and women farmers.

Jones and Rendall worked with a team of faculty and students from the ASMC Innovation Hub in Burkina Faso, and consortium members Dr. Tim Harrigan (Michigan State University) and Rob Burdick (Tillers International) to assess the planter technology using the technology assessment toolkit. Through interviews and observations, the team was able to determine that women do influence the technology adoption decision-making process, although they do not control the household’s decision-making regarding technology purchase.

Additionally, the team observed that women who are members of local agricultural producer associations or unions seem to enjoy increased influence over household decision-making in adopting new technologies. Men seemed to trust the information disseminated by the unions , and more readily adopted agricultural technologies promoted by the unions.

Jones said her biggest takeaway from the experience in Burkina Faso was for project leaders and researchers to keep the core purpose in mind when developing and refining technologies. Getting to the purpose requires solutions that are feasible and consider social and economic realities.

Over the last month, the ASMC Innovation Hub in Burkina Faso has been working to implement certain recommendations from the initial technology assessment conducted in June. For example, the hub is looking to test their planter technology with donkeys as draft animal power, as a feasible alternative to oxen, especially since female farmers do not tend to own oxen. The hub is also preparing to conduct a detailed gender study of the planter technology and its impacts on women farmers’ time and labor.

To read more about the technical aspects of the ASMC project, please read the Sustainable Intensification Innovation Lab (SIIL) blog post about the project, located here