Gender as a Cross‐Cutting Issue in Food Security: The NuME Project and Quality Protein Maize in Ethiopia

• Author: Kidist Gebreselassie,Nilupa S. Gunaratna,Mulunesh Tsegaye,Cheryl O'Brien,Hugo De Groote,Zachary M. Gitonga
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/wmh3.198
• Date: 01 September 2016
• Published date: 01 September 2016

Gender as a Cross-Cutting Issue in Food Security: The

NuME Project and Quality Protein Maize in Ethiopia

Cheryl O’Brien, Nilupa S. Gunaratna, Kidist Gebreselassie,

Zachary M. Gitonga, Mulunesh Tsegaye, and Hugo De Groote

Gender research and gender empowerment, particularly through the increased participation of

women in extension services and activities, are recommended components in development initiatives

toward achieving gender equality, food security, and improved health in rural populations. Gender

dynamics have been under-researched in the agricultural technology literature on Sub-Saharan

Africa. This article contributes a gender-based analysis of the Nutritious Maize for Ethiopia

(NuME) project, an initiative implemented through a partnership among national and international

institutes for agriculture and public health. NuME promotes production of quality protein maize

(QPM), a group of nutritionally improved or biofortif‌ied maize varieties, to improve food and

nutritional security. Combining baseline data and case studies of project sites, our analysis

illuminates opportunities and obstacles to the adoption and impact of QPM. We f‌ind that women in

the project face barriers toward the adoption and effective utilization of such technologies. These

include less contact with agricultural extension, lower awareness of QPM, and less input into

decisions on and key aspects of adoption, production, and marketing. Our f‌indings conf‌irm a link

between gender inequalities and food insecurity. We conclude with specif‌ic policy recommendations

and gender empowerment strategies for governments and implementing partners to improve

women’s access to agricultural technologies and services.

KEY WORDS: gender, women’s empowerment, food security, biofortification, agricultural extension,

Ethiopia

Introduction

Gender is a cross-cutting issue in food security. The 1996 World Food Summit

def‌ined food security as the state in which “all people at all times have access to

suff‌icient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life” (World

Health Organization [WHO], 2015). Multiple gender inequalities and gender

norms contribute to food insecurities, and several studies demonstrate a link

between gender inequalities and food insecurities (Arend, 2011; Belachew et al.,

2011; Folayan, 2013; Frank, 1999; Haidar & Kogi-Makau, 2009; Kock, Krysher, &

Edwards, 2010; Snapp & Pound, 2008). Adeyemi (2010) writes: “Gender-based

inequalities all along the food production chain ‘from farm to plate’ impede the

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attainment of food and nutritional security” (p. 145). Contributing to the scholarly

research on gender equality and food security, this article examines a food

security project in Ethiopia and adds to the much-needed research on

Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), an area of pressing importance for food security:

“According to the 2009 Global Hunger Index, countries with the most severe

hunger problems also had high levels of gender inequality. Of the ten countries

that had the largest increase in Index scores, nine were in SSA” (Alliance for a

Green Revolution in Africa [AGRA], 2015, p. 10).

Women’s empowerment is critical to improving food insecurity in SSA and

worldwide, and this article contributes to the literature on women’s empowerment

in agriculture by examining the intersection of gender and food security through the

Nutritious Maize for Ethiopia (NuME) project. There are multiple ways to identify

and measure women’s empowerment. Kabeer (1999) provides a useful working

def‌inition of empowerment: “the expansion of people’s ability to make strategic life

choices in a context where this ability was previously denied to them” (p. 437). In

many developing countries, women lack the resources and opportunities they need

to make the most productive use of their time, and face more severe constraints than

men in accessing productive resources, markets and services (FAO, 2011).

Women’s empowerment is a key dimension of improved food security,

including children’s nutrition and health. How might women’s empowerment and

gender equality improve food security? Studies f‌ind that women’s empowerment

is particularly important for children’s nutritional security due to the gender role

of women as the primary caregivers. In a cross-national analysis of 13 countries,

Malapit et al. (2014) f‌ind “a strong pos itive relationship bet ween female

empowerment and the pre valence of children rec eiving a minimum accep table

diet” (p. 40). Similarly, through a statistical analysis of W orld Bank data, Driskell

(2004) f‌inds that “women’s em powerment is slightly mo re signif‌icant than

economic development o n children’s nutrition al well-being” (p. 166; see D riskell,

2004 for a review of the literat ure on women’s empowermen t and children’s

nutritional security ; see also Ruel, Alderman, & the Maternal and Child Nutrition

Study Group, 2013, Append ix). According to Smith and Haddad (2000), from

1970 to 1995, women’s empowerment through educatio n in developing countrie s

led to the greatest contri bution to reducing the ra te of child malnutrition,

responsible for 43 perce nt of the total reduction .

Women’s empowerment through income and household bargaining power is

also important for food security, as women and men tend to spend income

differently due in part to the gender role of women as primary caregivers.

Adeyemi (2010) writes: “Research in Africa, Asia and Latin America has found

that improvements in household food security and nutrition are associated with

women’s access to income and their role in household decisions on expenditure

as women tend to spend a signif‌icantly higher proportion of their income on food

for the family than men will do” (p. 149). Through four in-depth case studies in

Zimbabwe, Manda and Mvumi (2010) show that women are more concerned

with issues of household food security than men; women will use their

bargaining power to ensure that they and the children are food secure; and

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