Transforming gender in homestead food production

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Transforming gender in homestead food

production

Emily Hillenbrand

In Bangladesh, Helen Keller International (HKI) is known for its homestead food

production (HFP) programme, which promotes small-scale agriculture among women,

specifically to improve women’s and children’s nutrition outcomes, including dietary

diversity and knowledge of maternal self-care and infant�/young child feeding

practices. To achieve these aims, the programme focuses on women’s empowerment.

This article presents some of the challenges and opportunities involved in a programme

in which gender equity is intrinsically recognised as a social justice goal, as well as a

foundation for nutrition and food security gains.

Key words: gender equity; food security; gender training; organisational capacitybuilding

Globally, gender inequity is recognised as a basic, underlying cause of food insecurity

and persistent malnutrition (USAID 2009). Women’s lack of power relative to men

affects every aspect of food insecurity: from low agricultural productivity, which

reduces food availability on a national scale, to poor use and distribution of food

within the household, and poor knowledge of nutrition-promoting practices. Together,

these problems perpetuate epidemic levels of malnutrition, despite strong economic

growth in Bangladesh.

This article focuses on Helen Keller International (HKI)’s long-running homestead

food production (HFP) model in Bangladesh, which works exclusively with women.1

There is abundant evidence that women’s empowerment, particularly women’s

control over productive assets, should be central to all initiatives related to food

production and use. However, the question of how to define, measure, and bring about

significant ‘empowerment’ remains a stubborn challenge for organisations working in

the often segregated sectors of health/nutrition and agriculture. In health/nutrition,

the overarching outcome of producing healthier children may narrow the focus on

gender concerns, to support to women’s traditional motherhood roles. In agriculture,

with its emphasis on productivity, projects may retain a bias toward those with access

to greater land and technology resources: typically men.

Gender & Development Vol. 18, No. 3, November 2010ISSN 1355-2074 print/1364-9221 online/10/030411�/15 – Oxfam GB 2010

DOI: 10.1080/13552074.2010.521987

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In the development sector in Bangladesh, homestead gardening and small-scale

livestock or aquaculture �/ often supported with micro-finance �/ are some of the few

areas in which support is given to women food producers, often with an emphasis on

transferring productive assets. Homestead gardening has been linked explicitly to

development of sustainable livelihoods and resilience to risk, through better year-

round nutritional security and diversified income sources (Mitchell and Hanstad

2004).

This article begins with a brief overview of gender and malnutrition in Bangladesh.

It then outlines the main features of the project, before discussing the project in relation

to its role in supporting the empowerment of women. I understand this as ‘the

expansion in people’s ability to make strategic life choices in a context where this ability

was previously denied to them’ (Kabeer 1999, 437). In Naila Kabeer’s vision, indicators

of empowerment are made up of resources, abilities, and achievements, which are valued

from the point of view of the degree to which they transform underlying gender

inequalities. This transformative notion of empowerment sees it as the expansion of

women’s ability to make choices in their social, economic and moral context.

The article is based on personal observations, studies of historical project

documents and reports, discussions with national and regional HKI managers about

their understanding of gender, and direct implementation experience in the field. I am

writing as a programme manager and gender specialist within the organisation, who

has been actively involved in the programme, and in the organisational transformation

which has accompanied it, working together with the Country Director and key

managerial staff of the country office.

The context

Gender and malnutrition in Bangladesh

Gender discrimination and unequal allocation of food within households is a primary

underlying cause of South Asia’s persistent high rates of malnutrition compared with

other developing countries (Quisumbing 2007). The fact that extreme rates of women’s

malnutrition crosses social classes is a reflection of underlying discriminatory gender

norms, as well as poor infant and young child feeding practices, which remain largely

unchanged over the decades.

While maternal mortality rates have dropped over the past decades, more than

one-third of the female population in Bangladesh has a low body-mass index,

reflecting chronic energy deficiency, and nearly 50% of women are anaemic owing

to poor dietary quality, including lack of animal source foods, and lack of access to

low-cost remedies such as de-worming and iron supplementation (UNICEF 2009).

One-third (36 per cent) of children are born with low birth weight, which is directly

attributable to mothers’ nutritional status, and 43 per cent of under-fives are stunted.

Gender & Development Vol. 18, No. 3, November 2010412

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This stunting often begins in utero and reflects mothers’ under-nutrition and micro-

nutrient deficiencies (UNICEF 2008). The gender gap in nutrition and care continues

throughout childhood and into adolescence.

Women’s limited control over economic resources, exclusion from household

decisions, and restricted mobility all limit their claims to food and health spending. In

Bangladesh, women’s disempowerment and poor nutritional status is reinforced by

social norms that discourage women from seeking outside employment. The overall

percentage of women in the formal work force remains extremely low, at 26 per cent

for women of reproductive age (World Bank 2007, 55). The general undervaluation of

women’s domestic work, together with their lack of income, justifies the preferential

feeding of income-earning men over women and children, especially during times of

food shortage.

Challenges facing women in farmingMany challenges face women involved in smallholder agriculture. In Bangladesh,

gendered norms about women’s and men’s asset control (‘men control big things,

women control small things’), and an assumption that women in agriculture are

concerned with subsistence only, reinforces biases in policies and institutions. This

worsens women’s disadvantages in accessing markets, credit, technology and services,

and perpetuates the lack of recognition surrounding women’s role in farming (Mehra

and Rojas 2008). In Bangladesh, women food producers remain largely excluded from

land ownership, technology training, tools, and extension advice (Kelkar 2009).

In spite of the fact that women have a critical, and growing, role in agriculture in

Bangladesh, in the rural development context there is an entrenched inability to

recognise women who produce food as ‘farmers’ in their own right. The World Bank

Development Report of 2008 pointed out that the mainstream development commu-

nity continues to focus on women as subsistence-level food producers, ignoring the

reality that small-scale producers produce simultaneously for markets and for

consumption. Since the majority of women in farming are small-scale or subsistence

producers, this is particularly important for them.

Women traditionally contribute significant unpaid and unrecognised labour to

post-harvest processing of rice, the main crop produced in Bangladesh. A growing

proportion of the workforce in agriculture and fisheries in Bangladesh is female

(Mehra and Rojas 2008), and the majority of women are employed in these sectors: in

2006, about 75 per cent of the female labour force in Bangladesh was occupied in

agriculture and fisheries. As men migrate to higher-paid jobs and non-agriculture

occupations, women from extremely poor households, and women who are left as de

facto heads of households, transgress gender norms regarding the roles of women and

men in agriculture, and cultural restrictions on women’s mobility, to farm their family

land, or work as daily agricultural labourers. These women are now involved in

traditionally ‘male’ activities, including transplanting, irrigating, spraying, and other

Gender & Development Vol. 18, No. 3, November 2010 413

Transforming gender in homestead food production

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paddy-production activities. In addition, with increasing access to micro-finance and

non-government organisation (NGO) programmes, Bangladeshi women are increas-

ingly involved in small- or subsistence-level livestock, poultry, and horticultural

production at the homestead level.

The HFP model in Bangladesh

HKI’s HFP programme was introduced to Bangladesh two decades ago. The

programme promotes an integrated package of home gardening, small livestock

production, and nutrition education. It targets women with limited land. It was

designed specifically to improve the micro-nutrient intakes of women and children,

particularly Vitamin A, caused by chronic food insecurity and dietary monotony. Over

time, HFP has incorporated a broader range of nutrition topics, such as appropria-

te infant and young child feeding practices as well as a marketing component to

promote income generation.

The method through which the programme works is to establish a Village-level

Model Farmer (VMF), in the person of one community member who is willing for their

land to be developed into the village model farm. This model farm operates as a

demonstration plot for improved growing techniques, and a resource centre for

beneficiaries to receive seeds and training. The VMF acts as a local resource person for

the beneficiaries. He or she is an innovative farmer, who is willing to adopt new

gardening and seed replication techniques and pilot new seed varieties introduced by

agricultural staff from HKI and local partner NGOs. Because women in Bangladesh

generally do not own land and the selection criteria for beneficiaries was lack of

gardening experience and limited land, the VMF was �/ until recently �/ usually a

middle-class, established male farmer, with significant prior knowledge and a

significantly larger plot (about half an acre) than most of his associated group

members.

Typically, one VMF is assigned 2 or 3 clusters of 20 women (the direct beneficiaries)

who attend trainings or collect seeds, seedlings and other agricultural inputs from the

VMF. The VMFs agree to provide regular follow-up advice to their surrounding group

members (the beneficiaries), with technical assistance from a local implementing NGO

partner and HKI staff (see Figure 1).

The aim of this approach is to provide agricultural services to those who would not

normally have access: that is, the women group members (the project’s direct

beneficiaries). It is hoped that the group members who visit the VMF will be

motivated to replicate what they see on the model farm on their own homestead plots,

and will be comfortable to approach the VMF for technical advice. Initially, inputs and

seeds are provided directly by HKI and partner NGOs to both the VMF and group

members.


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Over time, the beneficiaries come to rely on their own seed storage techniques, or

on the VMF for renewing their seed supply. Thus, the role of the VMF was envisioned

to fill a gap in rural extension services, and also to ensure a local source of quality

seeds and saplings, seeds and new agricultural information and technologies to food-

insecure communities.

Typically, one VMF invites the women farmers assigned to him or her to attend

trainings or to collect various seeds, seedlings and inputs. The VMFs agree to provide

regular follow-up advice to their surrounding group members, with technical

assistance from a local implementing NGO partner and HKI staff.

Agricultural training sessions are delivered at the VMF by partner NGO staff, who

are trained and supported by HKI agriculture officers. Regular courtyard sessions

offering nutrition education and gender awareness training are also delivered by

partner NGO staff, who are trained and mentored by HKI nutritionists. One

beneficiary per group is elected to be a Group Leader, who is responsible for getting

women to participate in the courtyard sessions. While attendance is not mandatory, the

courtyard sessions are considered an essential component of the programme, and the

Group Leaders are selected to help ensure participation.

Critiquing the HFP programme through a gender lens

What impact has the programme had? In 2009, a retrospective evaluation conducted

for the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) project, Millions Fed: Proven

Successes in Agricultural Development looked at homestead food production throughout

South Asia. HKI’s homestead food production was recognised by the Millions Fed

Figure 1: The HFP programme model.



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project as one of the models that has substantially reduced hunger and poverty. HKI

project monitoring and evaluation documents indicate that the intervention has

directly benefited over five million people, nearly 4 per cent of the population, in rural

areas throughout Bangladesh, by improving vegetable yields greatly. It has also greatly

improved household-level consumption of micro-nutrient-dense foods, particularly of

iron- and Vitamin-A-rich dark green leafy vegetables and eggs. In addition, roughly

70 per cent of participating households generate some surplus income from gardening.

This income is used mainly for purchase of additional food items, as well as priorities

such as education, health, and productive assets. It appears that income from poultry

rearing, more so than vegetable income, is particularly relevant for investments in

productive assets as well as education (Iannotti et al. 2009).

However, the question of the extent to which the project supports the empower-

ment of women is more difficult to answer. The notion of empowerment was initially

not central or even tangential to the programming. The language of ‘women’s

empowerment’ gradually crept into the documentation, as field officers observed

positive changes in women’s quality of life, and their say over household decisions

related to their participation in the programme. Nonetheless, the concepts and

definitions of empowerment and how to address the issues as an organisation were

not critically examined.

Despite empowerment of women not being an explicit aim, some achievements

were made in terms of challenging gender inequality. One longitudinal review of

homestead food production in Bangladesh showed an increase (from 14 per cent to

nearly 50 per cent) in the percentage of women who considered that they had ‘full

participation’ in small household decisions. This increase is laudable, and suggests a

change in intra-household power dynamics (Iannotti et al. 2009, 17). However, ‘small

household decisions’ fall within the acceptable female domain of decision-making in

Bangladesh, rather than challenging the kinds of decisions which women make, and in

addition this indicator of empowerment provides little insight into the grey area of

‘joint’ decision-making, which is where women’s informal exercise of agency may be at

play (Kabeer 1999).

In fact, part of HFP’s widespread applicability throughout Bangladesh may lie in

the fact that the model deliberately does not contest existing gender norms or

patriarchal power structures.

The HFP programme reflects many existing gender norms about farming and food

production. Stereotypes about farmers being male were often unchallenged. The

agricultural training component was delivered by all-male field staff, while nutrition

education was delivered by all-female staff. The main selection criteria for the VMF

was possession of a suitable and sizeable land plot, and prior experience in farming, as

stated earlier, which meant that the VMF was usually a man.

While some form of nutrition education was incorporated into the model very early

on, the owners of the VMFs were never involved or expected to attend the nutrition


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training sessions (discussion with HKI HFP staff, May 2009). Inadvertently or

deliberately, men were not allocated a responsibility in the nutritional side of food

production, reinforcing existing beliefs about men’s and women’s roles. On the other

hand, the agriculture technology transfer in the model was delivered in a way which

reinforced the stereotypes that men are capable of ‘farming’ (large-scale, commercially

oriented), while women are suited for ‘gardening’ (domestic, small-scale) and food

preparation.

Inadequate reflection was probably given to choosing technologies and assets that

could give support to women in terms of extending their agency and bargaining power

within their households. For example, paddy seed and inputs are occasionally given to

small-scale male farmers as part of on-farm livelihoods support. Because rice is

popularly seen as a ‘male crop’, training on rice seed generally excludes women,

despite their critical role in rice production, and in particular in seed selection and

storage and seedling production; this can negatively affect the potential productivity

from new rice varieties. On the other hand, rice threshing machines may be distributed

as part of post-harvest value-addition processes, without considering the implications

for women and men, in terms of labour, time, and asset control. With technologies such

as threshers, women are expected to contribute the additional labour, while realising

no significant share in the income earned from the male-controlled crop. Often

unwittingly, this type of asset transfer reinforces women’s relegation to invisible and

unpaid food production processes. In other cases, women are trained on how to select

quality homestead seed for the gardens, but since they do not attend markets

themselves, the knowledge may be lost, as their spouses choose the seeds for them

(Annual reflection meeting, March 2010).

In sum, this type of food security programme appears to ‘support women in . . .

culturally acceptable roles . . .[such that] women enhance their bargaining power and

become more productive in their traditional roles’ (Iannotti et al. 2009, 17; emphasis

added).

Transforming the programme to empower women farmers

In HKI Bangladesh, a critical re-examination of HKI’s HFP model over the past three

years has brought a fresh perspective to the programme. This re-examination was

triggered in part by concern for the skewed picture of asset distribution between VMFs

and households, and by the limited productive asset-base being built up through the

programme. As part of the restructuring process, key research and managerial staff

with academic and practical backgrounds in gender, epidemiology, and social work,

were brought in. This more multidisciplinary management team looked at the HFP

programme from a more holistic perspective, with a view to how it could best meet the

prescient development challenges of Bangladesh.



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At the same time, critical donor calls for proposal in both the nutrition and

agriculture sectors have placed greater emphasis on gender equity. Pursuing these

calls, HKI took the opportunity to build on its traditional strengths, while more

comprehensively addressing gender disparities.

HKI is now working to develop HFP models that challenge unequal norms and

transform understanding of women food producers’ capabilities, needs, and rights.

This section describes several of the changes that have taken place.

Women and VMFsIn one location, land size has been eliminated from the VMF selection criteria,

encouraging more women to put their land forward to be a VMF. The groups of

women beneficiaries themselves then elect the female member who they believe has

the greatest leadership and agricultural capacity. In one project, 70 per cent of the

VMFs are owned by women, and the average land size of the VMF owners in these

areas is 13 decimals (approximately 0.13ha). This more closely resembles the land

holdings of the group members, which range from B1 to over 10 decimals. The

rationale behind this change is that VMFs will be able to demonstrate techniques their

group members are capable of replicating on their own small-size farms. It was also

believed that women owners of VMFs, who are elected by their peers, might feel a

stronger sense of social responsibility and bonding toward the group members and

would spend more time providing technical support to group members.

Preliminary findings suggest that, indeed, women owners of VMFs appear to

spend more social and technical support time with their group members. They are

more readily available to their group members, while men view the VMF responsi-

bility as a business relationship and spend much of their time on other business

activities off the farm. Women owners of VMFs also more readily support needy group

members by giving seeds and vegetables, while the traditional male owner of a VMF

tends to view his group members as customers for his surplus produce. In itself, these

differences reflect gendered socialisation, which expects women to perform nurturing

and relationship building roles within the communities, while expecting men to focus

on income- and business-oriented networks. Women may need additional support in

building up the business skills and networks in which men have a gendered

advantage.

However, taking on the role of VMF has posed challenges for women. Despite their

added farming responsibilities, female VMFs’ heavy household workloads did not

appear to diminish. The gendered division of agricultural labour, even at homestead

level, is entrenched in beliefs of men’s superior physical powers and control of any

expensive or high-tech equipment. In a recent qualitative study comparing the

experiences of male and female VMF owners, women and men alike believed that

only men are capable of doing the physical labour of preparing beds and planting

seeds, disbursing fertilisers or using insecticides. Female owners of VMFs stated that


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they remained dependent on their spouses and sons to do marketing and ‘heavy

labour’, such as raising garden beds (interviews from HKI Dishari Project Gender

Assessment April 20, 2010).

Women are equally capable of learning and demonstrating the new techniques, but

the women were more likely to fear failure or to doubt their capabilities. One female

VMF said: ‘Women do not know anything. I have to ask many people about

everything. But males can work very quickly because they know these things before’.

In fact, this is not the case, as interviews found that men also faced challenges with

new food production techniques (interviews from HKI Dishari Project Gender

Assessment April 20, 2010).

Evidence shows that with support, women’s confidence to move into these

traditionally masculine domains greatly improves. One year into the project, a female

VMF clearly described her own achievement: ‘Before I was not that clever, now I am

clever and I can think of many things, I can give advice to others so they can prepare

the land and tell others how to do the same’. This initial experience suggests that

enabling small-scale, female farmers to become owners of VMFs can lead to expansion

of women’s resources, abilities, and self-defined achievements in areas previously

denied them. They also appear to provide more regular extension services to their

surrounding group members. However, truly to transform gender at this level, it is

essential to challenge the unequal division of labour that privileges male avoidance of

household tasks, maintaining undue work burdens for women.

Group marketingIn Bangladesh, the social value placed on purdah and women’s invisibility in the male-

only public sphere remains one of the greatest challenges to expanding women’s

choices in agricultural production, service access, and marketing.

To counter these challenges, HKI began introducing group marketing, a form of

collective action that affords women greater control and flexibility over their market-

ing decisions. Typically using the VMF as the hub, the HFP groups choose a fixed

weekday as ‘market day’, when they can bring whatever surplus they have �/ be it

kilograms of vegetables or a single bottle gourd �/ to the marketing group. At the

collection point, they are paid immediately in cash for the produce at an established

price; the vendor (occasionally the VMF himself, or another local intermediary) then

takes the bulk to nearby or larger markets.

While this arrangement does not change the fundamental restriction against

women’s mobility and visibility in the marketplace, it does offer women greater

strategic control over their mini-business, puts money from their sales directly into

their own hands, and allows them to establish a direct business relationship with the

market intermediary. It is also makes minimal demands on their time, as the market

point is established often within the neighbourhood. While incomes are modest, many

of the women interviewed were investing the resources from their sales in long-term



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goals, such government-subsidised savings funds for their children’s education. While

the success of the group marketing component in this model depends largely on the

involvement and interest of the model farmer or male intermediary, this collective

action approach has potential for expansion into other agricultural activities, such a

group-based food processing or seed and sapling production.

Mixed-gender cash-for-work crewsAs described earlier, extremely poor women are increasingly present in agricultural

and other day labour, yet homestead food production projects often do not reach them

due to their lack of own land. Recently, a cash for work (CFW) component was

initiated in one HFP project, to help cyclone-affected families recover assets following

the devastating Cyclone Sidr. Countering the entrenched gender-based wage dis-

crimination in the casual labour market, the HKI project paid on an hourly basis, rather

than the standard wage per cubic metre of earth moved. Moreover, HKI required equal

numbers of men and women to work and be trained side by side. Extremely poor men

and women joined work brigades and received a daily wage for meeting immediate

needs, plus a daily savings component that was disbursed at the end of the project.

CFW members participated in a five-day Selection Planning and Management training

for the development of income generating activities. During the training, they

identified how to use their savings to set up small enterprises, including livestock

production.

Ultra-poor men and women were destitute, and readily accepted the conditions

about gender in exchange for the high daily wage and humane working conditions.

However, over the course of the project, interviews with the participants confirmed

that the experience transformed their view of gender relations and the women’s self-

regard. During the training period, men and women were observed chatting equally

vocally in their small working groups. Both women and men were astonished to find

that women worked equally hard as men, and some men claimed to have new-found

respect for the household labour that their own wives performed at home.

Some participants proposed jointly managed household budgeting arrangements,

whereby one spouse’s salary would be used for daily expenses, and the other would be

set aside for savings. While a few women experience harassment from former

employers, they stated that their male colleagues were supportive and respectful,

and they themselves seemed surprised at their abilities. Women invested their savings

components into productive assets, including large livestock, that enabled them to

access services (loans) and social circles previously denied them.

The potential for resistance in this component was reduced by the fact that

participants were from the same neighbourhood and class, and shared a solidarity

based on common hardships. It remains to be seen whether this gender barrier could

be crossed with the higher wealth groups, which have the luxury and social

expectation to practice purdah. Nonetheless, this component represents a significant


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gender achievement for the HKI staff, as it illustrates the possibility to successfully

challenge and transform seemingly inflexible gendered norms.

Expanded measures of empowerment

In an effort to deepen the organisational understanding of empowerment as it relates

to women’s food security and food-use, HKI introduced new tools to describe and

build women’s own capacities and needs. In baseline surveys, HKI adapted a version

of the Matthias and Schwarzer Self-Efficacy Tool to assess women’s confidence in

solving problems. This includes a series of ten statements, such as: ‘When faced with

a problem, you can usually find several solutions’. The scale also includes several

statements related to specific gender restrictions in Bangladesh. A baseline survey

carried out in 2009 showed extremely low perceptions of self-efficacy among the

women. Between 60 and 75 per cent of the surveyed women ‘disagreed’, or ‘strongly

disagreed’, that they are capable of solving problems on their own, or coping

effectively with unexpected situations. Fewer than 16 per cent felt it was ‘easy to

stick to personal goals and accomplish dreams’.

This scale is not a stand-alone indicator of empowerment. However, it does give a

sense of women’s sense of internal power at the start and end of a given intervention,

and can be checked against other indicators of empowerment and women’s capacity to

ensure food security and nutrition for themselves and family members. Coupled with

qualitative and participatory research methods, the questions can provide greater

depth of understanding about the types of self-limiting beliefs or intra-household

negotiations that women face in relationship to their agricultural and personal goals.

This investigation suggests that the programme needs to focus attention on building

not only technical skills, but practice and confidence in making difficult decisions.

Across several projects, qualitative monitoring has been used to probe into

questions about household management decisions. Women were able to identify

clearly the issues that they wanted more control over �/ particularly unmitigated access

to irrigation water and income-earning opportunities. This process also sheds light on

so-called ‘joint decision-making’, revealing how women exercise agency and negotiate

with gendered norms to achieve their own goals.

Exploring the self-efficacy findings with the project staff and beneficiaries at the

outset of a project is part of the process of defining and examining indicators of

empowerment for small-scale food producers. This process clarifies what constitutes a

‘strategic life choice’ and the context in which such choices are denied. It allows staff to

cross-check the organisation’s goals with women’s own visions. It identifies critical

areas, issues, and other family members that can help build women’s potential agency.

Along with the self-efficacy tool, HKI has introduced participatory monitoring tool

that serves the multiple purposes of monitoring key nutrition practices, engaging

group members in the process of problem-solving, and building the capacity of HKI

staff to counsel and facilitate. Using participatory-drawn maps of their group



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members’ households, the HFP groups meet each month to discuss their nutrition-

related problems and achievement. Marking certain common indicators on the map

(such as egg consumption, incidence of diarrhoea, iron supplementation intake), the

group members are actively engaged in the process of identifying causes and solutions

to problems they face. In this way, the project aims to create structured opportunities

for achieving goals, which can carry into other areas of their lives.

Training for change

HKI has found that the crucial first step to developing a transformative environment is

to create opportunities for staff training and reflection on gender, from top-level

managers down to field staff and beneficiaries.

Gender training should be a reflexive process that engages with the lived realities

of the staff and exposes concepts of inequity at a personal level. During a recent two-

day gender training with all HKI mid- and upper-level staff, the participants were

engaged in debates about contested gender issues, had a chance to role-play gender

terminology concepts, act out and analyse media messages, and play ‘gender

jeopardy’, which presented global and Bangladeshi trivia on gender disparities. The

approach throughout the training was fun, but not tentative. Participants were

continually challenged to relate contested gender norms and practices to their own

households, and secondly to answer the question: ‘Is this practice right? Is this the way

you want it to be?’. The aim was to challenge the staff perception that gender

inequality is a foremost a ‘beneficiary problem’, and to infuse gently a political edge,

challenging participants to take a stand on inequity. The participants �/ many of them

agriculturalists �/ were perhaps most impressed by the factual data on women’s role in

agriculture. They were shocked to learn that women own so little land and yet produce

so much of the world’s food. In at least one feedback form, one participant vowed: ‘We

will recognise women as farmers’.

Apart from formal classroom training, engaging staff in other exercises of social

research with the beneficiaries also build in opportunities for interacting with the

‘other’ and understanding their experiences of inequality. In 2009, a social analysis was

conducted at the start of a project, using the new project staff as researchers. The staff

helped design the field questions and decide which stakeholders to interview; in this

process, they themselves came to identify ‘invisible’ community members, and to

question preliminary judgments. Understanding how power permeates even their

own tight-knit group gave them a tangible analogy for identifying and addressing the

voiceless in their project communities and led to a change in their interview lists. In

itself, the experience of interviewing, analysing, writing, and critically thinking was a

richly rewarding and empowering experience for all of the participants and led to a

heightened focus on gender-based violence and other disparities that are not directly

related to their agricultural work.


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In another case, qualitative gender analysis was carried out using field staff as

researchers. The team used a few Participatory Rural Appraisal tools to deeply

examine several focused gender issues �/ including social networks, asset-protection

strategies during disaster, and how income is earned and utilised in the household.

During the data analysis process after their fieldwork, the staff/researchers were able

to clearly visualise the basic gender disparities described earlier (‘Women control small

things, and men own all big things’). But perhaps for the first time, they recognised

this ‘normal’ pattern as unjust. By the end of the gender analysis, the team concluded

that the inequities within the groups and the plight of the extreme poor women were a

significant concern to them, and that they would like to focus project activities on

reducing the input disparities between the model farmer and the poorest group

members.

Equally significantly, many of the researchers were surprised at their ability to

empathise with and communicate with the poor. ‘A woman from a poor family can

make us understand and explain everything perfectly’, marvelled one staff member.

Another found her viewpoint changed when she took the time to listen to the women’s

stories, noting: ‘They seemed fine from the outside, but you cannot understand a

person if you see him from the outside’.

Conclusion: re-politicising gender in agriculture

Despite their significant achievements in delivering food security and nutrition

outcomes, many food security programmes in Bangladesh deliberately shy away

from critical engagement with gendered power or sector-wide discriminations against

women. Their instrumental understanding of ‘empowerment’ is rooted in an under-

standing of women as instruments for broader development goals. Such programmes

work through women to realise improvements in overall household security and

intergenerational health outcomes. But organisations choosing not to contest gendered

norms must be aware of how they can inadvertently reinforce the inequalities behind

these belief systems. In contrast, when staff have a clear goal of gender transformation,

they can more effectively design activities that build the resource base, agency,

and achievements of women participants.

Lessons learned from HKI/ Bangladesh show that even when development

projects are designed through a gender lens, staff must be brought along with gender

ideas, or all the good intentions of a gender-aware project design could be lost. While

guidelines for mainstreaming gender exist in abundance, culturally specific gender

training materials for organisations are harder to find. Gender frameworks that

emphasise nuance, complexity, and challenges to power structures may be avoided, as

they have the potential to sow discouragement or resistance rather than will to change

in an organisation. As Reid (2004) points out: ‘complex skills are required to

understand the lives of the oppressed and the factors that shape and distort them.



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Tools such as gender analysis frameworks are not adequate to develop these skills’.

For this reason, instrumentalist measures of ‘empowerment’ still permeate the practice

of development.

Transforming gender relations is an inherently political act, which takes strong

organisational support and willingness to engage with gender as an issue of power

and injustice. In many Bangladeshi organisations, precisely following instructions are

valued and encouraged, while critical thinking is not. Thus, encouraging processes of

genuine staff participation within an organisation, allowing opportunities for conflict

and expression of opinion represents a subtle reversal of ‘normal’ power structures

and practices. In itself, this is a process of empowerment that can engage all staff in a

political project for greater equity.

Emily Hillenbrand is Programme Manager for Helen Keller International, Bangladesh. Postal

address: Road 82, House 10F, Gulshan 2, Dhaka, Bangladesh. Email: [email protected]

Note

1 ‘Courtyard sessions’ are informal information- and training-delivery mechanisms,

which are typical for NGOs in Bangladesh. Groups of women are easily mobilised to

come together in one of their members’ yards to receive messages or lessons, often

related to savings, family planning, or health.

References

Iannotti, L., K. Cunningham, and M. Ruel (2009) ‘Improving Diet Quality and

Micronutrient Nutrition: Homestead Food Production in Bangladesh’, IFPRI Discussion

Paper 00928, Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute

Kabeer, N. (1999) ‘Resources, agency, achievements, reflections on the measure of women’sempowerment’, Development and Change 30: 435�/464

Kelkar, G. (2009) ‘The Feminization of Agriculture in Asia: Implications for Women’s

Agency and Productivity’, New Delhi: South Asia UNIFEM Regional Office, http://

www.agnet.org/library/eb/594 (last accessed 4 January 2010)

Mitchell, R., and T. Hanstad (2004) ‘Small Homestead Plots and Sustainable Livelihoods

for the Poor’, LSP Working Paper 11, Rural Development Institute

Quisumbing, A. (2007) ‘Women’s Status and the Changing Nature of Rural Livelihoods in

Asia’, paper prepared for the policy forum ‘Agricultural and Rural Development forReducing Poverty and Hunger in Asia: In Pursuit of Inclusive and Sustainable Growth’,

Organized by International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and Asian Develop-

ment Bank (ADB), Manila, Philippines August 9�/10

Reid, E. (2004) ‘Transformational development and the wellbeing of women’, Development

Bulletin 64: 16�/20


Emily Hillenbrand

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http://www.agnet.org/library/eb/594



UNICEF (2008) ‘The State of the World’s Children 2009: Maternal and Newborn Health.’

New York: UNICEFUSAID (2009) ‘Office of Food for Peace Bangladesh Food Security Country Framework Fy

2010�/2014’, Draft prepared by USAID FFP, August 2009

World Bank (2007) ‘Whispers to Voices: Gender and Social Transformation in Bangladesh’,

http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTBANGLADESH/Resources/295657-120574028

6726/genderReport.pdf (last accessed 4 October 2010)



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http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTBANGLADESH/Resources/295657-1205740286726/genderReport.pdf

http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTBANGLADESH/Resources/295657-1205740286726/genderReport.pdf

Documents

Transforming gender in homestead food production