Kazakhstan’s 2012 drought and high temperatures cut the country’s wheat harvests by more than half from 2011 output, but wheat under zero-tillage practices gave up to three times more grain than conventionally cultivated crops. Two million hectares are currently under zero tillage, making Kazakhstan one of the top-ten countries for conservation agriculture and helping to avoid severe wheat shortages.

“If no-till practices had not been used this period of drought, we would have gotten nothing. It would have been an absolute catastrophe,” says Valentin Dvurechenskii, Director General of the Kostanay Agricultural Research Institute in Kazakhstan, giving his verdict on the 2012 wheat crop.

After farmers planted their wheat in April, Kostanay—the country’s main wheat growing region—went two months without rain. Making matters worse, daily temperatures were several degrees above normal. At the time, farmer and Director General of the Agrofirm Dievskaya, Oleg Danilenko, echoed the view of peers: “I’ve been a farmer for 35 years, and I’ve never seen anything like this.” Danilenko said the harsh conditions pointed up the advantages of conservation agriculture, which involves reduced or zero tillage, keeping crop residues on the soil, and rotating crops. “No other results have been nearly as successful.”

Lack of rain darkens crop outlook

In the village of Tonkeris, 45 km from the capital Astana in the Akmola region, farmers’ fields had received no rainfall between May and September. According to farmers in the area, drought conditions used to be rare but are becoming more frequent. “I’ve been a farmer for 30 years,” said Idris Kozhabayev. “There was drought like this in 2000 and 2010. In recent years, it’s getting worse.”

Cultivated using conventional practices, the fields of Akmola were expected to produce only enough wheat for next year’s seed. “The farmers’ fields I work with all look like this. Some are worse,” said Daniyar Andibayev, an agronomist in the region.

Meanwhile, in Kostanay, many farmers had adopted conservation agriculture techniques that protected them from drought’s worst effects. With these, farmers reported yields of 2 tons per hectare, while some farmers using conventional practices lost their entire crop.

Conserving where it counts

Kazakhstan is the world’s sixth largest wheat exporter. More than 14 million of the country’s 15 million hectares of wheat is rainfed, meaning the crop relies on precipitation and is thus vulnerable to dry weather. Reports in January 2013 said the 2012 drought had shrunk the wheat crop 57% from 2011’s record harvests.

Farmers are initially attracted to zero tillage and conservation agriculture because the approaches dramatically cut costs: farming this way requires less labor, machinery use, fuel, water, or fertilizers. In rainfed cropping, conservation agriculture can also boost yields.

Research has shown that conservation agriculture increases soil moisture by as much as 24% on most fields. In Kazakhstan the practices capture snow on the surface and improve water retention under heavy snowfall and subzero temperatures. Zero tillage also augments soil organic matter and cuts erosion by 75-100%. All this has helped to nearly double average wheat yields, from 1.4 to 2.6 tons per hectare, according to Dvurechenskii. In December 2011 Dvurechenskii was awarded the “Gold Star” medal and the rank “Hero of Labor of Kazakhstan” by the country’s President, in recognition of his work to promote conservation agriculture.

The findings of a 2012 FAO-Investment Centre mission to Kazakhstan^₁ suggest that adoption of zero tillage and conservation agriculture had raised domestic wheat production by almost 2 million tons. According to the mission report, this represents some US$ 0.58 billion more income over 2010-12, enough grain to satisfy the annual cereal requirements of almost 5 million people, and the sequestering of about 1.8 million additional tons of CO₂ per year.

Pushing out with better practices

With the support of CIMMYT, FAO, ICARDA, the World Bank, the Ministry of Agriculture of Kazakhstan, and other international organizations and donors, Kazakhstan went from practically nothing under conservation agriculture in 2000 to 0.5 million hectares in 2007. In 2012, as a result of ongoing farmer engagement through demonstration plots, field days, and close work with farmer unions, conservation agriculture is now practiced on 2.0 million hectares—13% of the country’s wheat-growing area.”This amazing adoption is thanks to a few scientists who saw the potential, but more importantly to the pioneer farmers who perfected the techniques and put them into practice; farmers believe farmers,” says conservation agriculture expert Pat Wall, who, together with CIMMYT colleagues Alexei Morgounov and Muratbek Karabayev, initiated field trials with Kazakhstani scientists in the country’s northern steppes in 2000.

“The main achievement of CIMMYT in Kazakhstan has been the changing of the minds of farmers and scientists,” observes Bayan Alimgazinova, head of the Crop Production Department of KazAgroInnovation, a specialized organization created by the Ministry of Agriculture to increase the competitiveness of the country’s agricultural sector. Based on the positive results of research trials and tests in farmers’ fields, Kazakhstan’s current state policy calls for every province to pursue zero tillage.

“Kazakhstan has a wheat growing area of 15 million hectares presently and can increase it up to 20 million hectares,” added Murat Karabayev, CIMMYT representative in Kazakhstan. “This is extremely important for the food security of the country, the Central Asian region, and globally. There is a real opportunity to double yields using new advanced technologies and improved varieties. We’ve already seen this through conservation agriculture.”

For more information: Muratbek Karabayev, CIMMYT Representative in Kazakhstan (m.karabayev@cgiar.org)
CIMMYT’s conservation agriculture activities in Kazakhstan have been funded by the different sources, including from CIMMYT’s own resources and the comprehensive World Bank Agriculture Competitiveness Project (ACP). CIMMYT received two grants between 2008 and 2010 from the World Bank’s ACP to promote conservation agriculture practices in Kazakhstan.

Interview: Auyezkhan K. Darinov, 2012 Auyezkhan K. Darinov has been a farmer since 1993, and represents two million of his fellows as President-Chairman of the”Kazakhstan Farmers Union”. He works to unite and provide a voice to small and medium-scale farmers in Kazakhstan and to promote pro-farmer policies with the Ministry of Agriculture. What are the main activities of the Kazakhstan Farmers Union? We work with farmers to influence the government and to push for policies that can benefit farmers. The government sometimes doesn’t understand the issues farmers are facing. We meet with the Prime Minister, ministers, other officials every week to push for ideas for farmers. We organize events, meetings, and seminars and this has been our best strategy for getting conservation agriculture to farmers. What strategies do you use to introduce conservation agriculture to farmers? The Farmers Union was established in 2000. Since 2002, we have been working with farmers to introduce them to the merits of conservation agriculture. Now, we are working with farmers in all of the provinces and districts. Through our representatives, we have established a network of farmers who work on spreading the technology of conservation agriculture throughout the country. We are the largest NGO in Kazakhstan and we represent the interests of farmers in all levels of the social-economic and political spheres of the country. We are working with the government to develop policies for next year and to draft programs. What does this year’s drought mean for farmers? There are estimates of expected yields for this year which are being reported. However since we know the stories of farmers and the real situation of farmers’ fields, we know that the official estimates are higher than the reality. We’re expecting up to 2 million tons of grain less than official estimates. This year, many farmers are in crucial situations and need assistance from the government. Do you think more farmers will be convinced to start using conservation agriculture following the drought? Conservation agriculture is still a challenge in some areas, like Southern Kazakhstan. However, on the whole, farmers are already convinced of the merits of conservation agriculture, but it’s a problem of resources. There have to be changes in the agriculture system to equip small and medium-sized farmers with equipment that they can’t afford. It’s an expensive venture to make the shift from traditional practices to new technologies. That’s why we’re working with farmers to form cooperatives so equipment can be shared and lent to farmers. What role has CIMMYT played in Kazakhstan? Kazakhstan is now the most experienced in conservation agriculture in Central Asia. We worked with pioneers of conservation agriculture technologies such as Ken Sayre and Pat Wall. CIMMYT was one of the first and the best in conservation agriculture. In all large projects, CIMMYT invites the Farmers’ Union and similarly, the Farmers’ Union invites CIMMYT. What are some of the main challenges you see for agriculture in Kazakhstan in the future? All irrigation water is coming from neighboring countries. We need to change the agriculture system to use less water and produce higher yields. There is also a need to develop new varieties which are drought tolerant. That’s where the work of CIMMYT comes in. That’s why the work of CIMMYT in Kazakhstan is so important. Wheat seems to have a special importance to farmers here. Why is that? Wheat… it is our money. Basically, if farmers have wheat, they have money. We are a wheat and meat country. Other crops have importance, but not like wheat. Changing the volume of wheat changes the national economy. Farmers cannot imagine how they would survive without wheat. Farmers knew that this year would be dry. But nevertheless, they planted wheat. That’s how important wheat is in Kazakhstan. 1 Unpublished; see also a 2009 Investment Centre report on zero tillage in Kasakhstan.

Many scientists begin exploring at a young age; they try to figure out the things they don’t know, ask questions of others, and see how this information might be useful to them in creating new knowledge. The very lucky ones might have a mentor, or at the very least, a place where they are encouraged to cultivate their curiosity and use what they find out to help others.

This is one of the many reasons why CIMMYT participates in hosting Borlaug-Ruan Interns. Since 1998, over 180 Borlaug-Ruan Interns have traveled to Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Costa Rica, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, Philippines, Taiwan, Tanzania, Thailand, Trinidad, and Turkey; CIMMYT has proudly hosted 19 of these intelligent, ambitious individuals. One such student, Elizabeth Roche, visited CIMMYT-Mexico during the summer of 2011. “I loved every minute of my two month internship at CIMMYT,” she said. “Working in the wheat pathology lab enabled me to learn so much about agriculture and global food security.” Elizabeth is now majoring in Plant Pathology at Ohio State University. According to Hans Braun, Director of CIMMYT’s Global Wheat Program, by actively working alongside senior scientists, in the lab and the field, interns “really experience what science is. This is not sitting in a classroom reading from a textbook; it is about discovering a potential career and being inspired to further their scientific knowledge.”

Last summer, Tessa Ries left her hometown of Hastings, Minnesota, to conduct an internship at CIMMYT-Turkey. Based mainly at the field station in Eskisehir, Tessa worked alongside wheat pathologists screening wheat for resistance to crown rot and cereal cyst nematodes, two of the most serious constraints to wheat production in the region. Tessa is now studying at the University of Minnesota and has written a blog for the Global Agricultural Development Initiative about her time at CIMMYT. In 2013, CIMMYT hopes to welcome two more interns to its centers in Mexico and Turkey, continuing Norman Borlaug’s mission in inspiring young people worldwide to join the fight against hunger.

For more information on the Borlaug-Ruan International Internship click here.

Marianne Bänziger is the Deputy Director General for Research and Partnerships for CIMMYT.

Marianne started her career with CIMMYT as a post-doctoral fellow in 1994 working in Maize Physiology to develop varieties tolerant to low soil fertility and drought. She was based at the CIMMYT office in Zimbabwe during 1996-2004, after which she was appointed Director of the Maize Program, based in Nairobi. In 2009 Marianne became the DDG-Research. In that capacity, she led the development of the CGIAR research programs for maize and wheat.

Why did you choose agriculture?

I chose agriculture because it’s a science that impacts people’s lives. It’s as simple as that. I was also attracted to that it builds up on a wide range of disciplines – biology, chemistry, math, socioeconomics.

Your maize breeding work in Eastern and Southern Africa had, and still has, an enormous impact. Do you think that as a woman you gave a specific gender perspective to your research?

I lived in Africa for almost 15 years and it was impossible to ignore the people — the families — who struggled to improve their livelihoods. I saw them every day. We interacted frequently with both men and women farmers. In the environments we worked, the concern of the women farmers was more on avenues that improved household food security while the men were more concerned about selling their crops and generating income. Of course, families need both: Enough food to eat and income to pay for education fees, health costs, and things like farm inputs.

Another very obvious learning was that Africa has many strong women who drive change across the continent. You find them among farmers, among professionals, and among researchers alike.

Did you work differently as a woman breeder?

There have been books written about differences in men and women “behavior” or “traits” – In my opinion, these are stereotypes and they often break down. Every person puts their imprint, their personality, on their work, for better or worse, whether with “male” and “female” stereo-typed traits.

Did you have rural women in mind when you were developing different varieties of maize?

Interacting with farmers in Africa, I tried to understand how they make decisions and how those decisions link with and meet up with real options in the value chain. For instance, there was a stronger preference for hybrids by male farmers while female farmers preferred OPVs (open-pollinated varieties, which allow farmers to save seeds). We created an integrated breeding program that offered both OPVs and hybrids. The first generation of successful products was OPVs, “women typed” products. However, the reason for them to become available early on had to do with the seed sector ability to scale them up more rapidly as compared drought tolerant hybrids, not whether they were “female” or “male” preferred. The lesson learned is that researchers can craft gender differentiated options, we however need to understand the value chain to ensure that those options indeed become available and accessible at farm level.

Why did women prefer OPVs?

It gave them a greater sense of security about their ability to feed their families. Because they could save seed from year-to-year they felt more in control of their lives. Men preferred hybrids because they had a higher yield which meant more money in the market.

Unfortunately, preferences too often get treated as an either/or issue. We involved schools in rural areas in executing on-farm trials. I remember one particular instance talking to the headmaster of a school located in a drought prone area. I learned that classes had only one schoolbook which they had to share and pass around more than 50 children. Except for two old benches everybody was sitting on the floor. I asked him if the children – under these circumstances – were able to get a quality education and go to secondary school later on. He said the greatest concern wasn’t the lack of benches or books but that the children came to school and fell asleep because they were hungry. They were hungry because they only got one meal a day.

That school was in a drought-prone area and it made me once again realize how real and prominent food insecurity was. So, if you are a mother in such an environment, clearly the first thing you are concerned about is feeding your family and have a sense of control that you can achieve that. Setting food security as a priority does not mean that the woman would not want to grow hybrids as her family becomes more food secure. She also wants income for books and school fees. She would like to see her children learning a profession and likely leave agriculture. We must understand that poverty and hunger are intertwined and do our best to address both.

What do you think are the priorities to empower rural women in regions where we work?

Last week, I was in India at a meeting with farmers – both men and women – and one of the women stood up and said, “We want to have the same access to information and opportunities as men have.”

In the past, women have been deprived of information, of access to credit, and of the same opportunities offered to men. Fortunately many organizations including governmental organization begin to put more proactive gender strategies in place. We can and must ensure that more women get access to empowering information and opportunities. In our case, we are right now engaging in a gender audit of our projects, looking for new avenues to empower women. This is not just about analyzing how women or men think, but asking ourselves how we can empower women through our interventions. We however also have to accept that certain, indeed many, interventions have benefits to men and women alike. So doing a gender audit isn’t about being able to tick off the box and say ‘we addressed the gender aspects of this project’. It is about enriching our understanding how interventions, people, society, value chains, opportunities connect and then choosing more effective interventions that improve the livelihoods of the poor.

What advice would you give to young women scientists?

Pursue your dreams and be what you would like to be. I’d offer that advice to everyone, independent of whether they are a woman or a man, tall or short, or one nationality or the other.

Emma Gaalaas Mullaney is a researcher studying gender and agriculture. She has served as a Youth Representative to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity and Commission on the Status of Women since 2010.

What is your field of research?

I am currently pursuing a dual-PhD in Geography and Women’s Studies at Pennsylvania State University. My dissertation centers on an ethnography of maize production in the eastern Central Highland region of Mexico. I lived in the region for over a year, conducting livelihood studies and oral histories with small-scale, commercially-oriented maize farmers in the Amecameca Valley, and with agricultural extension technicians and scientific researchers working in the nearby Texcoco Valley.

How does gender figure into your research?

My research engages gender in multiple ways. For example, I work closely with farming households and analyze the gendered divisions of labor and decision-making involved in agricultural production. I conducted the oral histories and participatory observation with both female and male members of a given family who are involved in different aspect of maize cultivation, use, and marketing. I also work with both female and male agricultural extension agents and scientists, examining commonalities and differences in their work experiences and practices. I am interested in how gender interacts with other forms of social difference to shape our work and our everyday lives.

What drew you to this work?

I was raised in the rural Midwest (United States), and my extended family has grown corn and soybeans in south-central Wisconsin for generations. The lived experiences of those who work in agriculture has always been a deep interest of mine. I have found that paying close attention to what’s going on with food producers – or with farmers who no longer produce food for human consumption, as is the case for corn growers in the United States – can yield important insight into the strengths and failings of our society. Over the years, as my interests in agriculture and social justice have taken me through many different spaces of formal education, policy negotiation, and scholarly debate, I often gain the most inspiration and understanding while hanging out in fields, in kitchens, and in street markets. Ultimately, my work as a researcher is guided by and accountable to what’s happening on the farm.

When you were gathering the oral histories did certain themes or consistencies emerge?

The oral histories offer rich detail into the livelihoods of different actors and the challenges they face in their daily work routines. As these narratives make abundantly clear, each of the farmers, extension agents, and researchers with whom I spoke is an expert in her or his field. Moreover, they all expressed a high degree of ingenuity and innovation in their work, though this creativity was not necessarily rewarded by their respective institutions. The oral histories also highlighted the gendered divisions of labor among these agricultural workers. Though both women and men worked in leading positions – whether as farmers and maize vendors, as directors of extension teams, or as heads of research departments – the women consistently faced greater risks and uncertainties in their job. In every case I encountered, women took primary responsibility for the household management and decision-making that fell outside of their official job (childcare, bills, etc), putting them in a more highly pressured and less predictable position than their male counterparts. Women were also more likely to find their innovative ideas and contributions dismissed by colleagues on a regular basis, and many described feeling consistently like an outsider in their own work environment.

When you were gathering the oral histories what surprised you?

I did not expect to find such dramatic differences in the level of authority and control that women had over their own work among farming households as compared to women working as extension agents or scientific researchers. Though strict gender roles are perhaps more obvious in the rural farming communities of the Amecameca Valley – where men take charge of the planting, harvesting, and other fieldwork and women handle much of the food preparation, seed selection, and selling of maize in regional street markets – women in these communities are the undisputed experts in the work that they do, which grants them a great deal of space for creative problem solving and risk management on behalf of their family and the local maize economy. In contrast, women working as agricultural technicians, engineers, and researchers are in an environment where gender equality is an explicit priority, but where the standard worker in their position is, and has historically been, male. These women described finding themselves competing for recognition in a setting that often undervalues their individual insights and capabilities.

Do you think there are misconceptions about the research you’ve chosen to pursue?

Well, judging by a common response to my academic affiliation, many people mistakenly assume that, since I come from a Women’s Studies Department, I must begin my research by looking around for women. In fact, I begin my research by asking how particular agricultural systems work, and who is empowered or excluded by these systems. Gender is a force that shapes the agricultural practices and opportunities of both women and men around the world, and it is therefore necessary that I am well trained in gender analysis in order to ask the questions that I do. Gender, interacting with other forms of social difference, dictates who does what kind of work, whether that work is recognized or valued, who has access to resources such as land and credit, and who is allowed to speak with authority on a given subject. Understanding how gender functions is therefore essential to understanding how agriculture is happening and how to improve it. This is true even, perhaps especially, when I walk onto a cornfield, or into an office or lab and encounter only men.

Generally speaking, what are the conclusions your research revealed?

Given that I am still in the process of analyzing data from my dissertation research, I have not yet finished drawing conclusions about maize production in the eastern Central Highlands and its implications for development and biodiversity conservation. At the same time, there are clear themes that have emerged over the course of my fieldwork and which resonate with existing interdisciplinary research. By far the most prominent are the interdependence of innovation and diversity, and their combined importance in agricultural production. Diversity, in terms of maize germplasm, cultivation strategies, and economic systems, is both a resource for and product of innovation in agricultural production, and is a primary source of resilience for small-scale farming households in the Amecameca Valley. A diverse set of perspectives, specialties, and lived experiences is also an obvious source of creativity and innovation among agricultural extension agents and scientific researchers. My research highlights that the strongest and most productive work environments are those that foster these forms of diversification.

What did you discover about gender and agriculture in Mexico?

The most important lessons that I learned about gender and agriculture, after over a year of fieldwork in Mexico’s Central Highlands, are for the most part not new discoveries at all. Decades and decades of extensive research has shown that gender is not merely one social factor among many, one that may or may not be relevant in a given situation. Rather, gender is a dominant social institution that is guaranteed to play a role in shaping agricultural outcomes, even though this process takes many different forms in different places. That Mexico, along with countries around the world, including the United States, currently has such a high degree of gender inequality has devastating consequences for those whose work is ignored or undervalued, and for agricultural production as a whole. Perhaps the new lesson offered by my research is that these very old patterns of inequality still persist today.

What types of changes (policy, research, etc.) do you think would help women and families in Mexico?

There must be public accountability for gender inequality and violence. The different types of gender injustice occurring in Mexico today are not equivalent, but invisible women farmers, gender discrimination in the workplace, and femicide are all products of a society that systematically devalues women’s work and their lives. This is not a problem that is caused by individuals acting alone, nor is it one that can be solved at the individual level; public policy must be held responsible for the fact that gender inequality continues to increase in the face of economic restructuring and global climate change. One important starting point, that is also an important part of any ongoing solution, would be for researchers and policymakers alike to listen carefully to the many women who are already struggling for change.

Finally, I’d like to express my heartfelt thanks to everyone who has worked with me in my research. I am indebted to all the farmers, extension agents, and researchers who graciously allowed me to interview them and to poke my nose into their lives. They do such important, inspiring work, and I look forward to building on these relationships in future research.

Nicole Mason is an assistant professor of International Development at the Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics at Michigan State University.

Currently on long-term assignment with the Indaba Agricultural Policy Research Institute in Lusaka, Zambia, Mason completed her PhD in Agricultural Economics at MSU in August 2011. Her research focuses on various dimensions of agricultural input and output subsidy programs in Africa, including political economy aspects as well as program effects on smallholder farmer behavior, poverty, inequality, and maize market prices. Prior to joining MSU, Mason served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Guinea and worked with the Partnership to Cut Hunger & Poverty in Africa. Mason was an invited speaker at the conference “Wheat for food security in Africa: Science and policy dialogue about the future of wheat in Africa,” held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, during October 2012, and organized by the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR), CIMMYT, ICARDA, IFPRI, the African Union, and WHEAT-the CGIAR research program.

What drew you to international development research and outreach?

During my undergraduate studies at Allegheny College, I took a class entitled “Understanding Environmental Problems in Africa,” taught by the applied economist and returned Peace Corps volunteer Dr. Terrence Bensel. He piqued my interest in Africa and the Peace Corps, and I decided to join the Peace Corps after college. I had the privilege of serving as a volunteer in the rural community of Dalein in the Fouta Djallon region of Guinea in West Africa. I worked with smallholder farmers and women’s gardening cooperatives and saw firsthand the critical role that agriculture plays in the livelihoods of so many rural Africans. These experiences inspired me to pursue a career in international agricultural development research, capacity building, and outreach.

What drew you to work on the trends and drivers of wheat consumption in sub-Saharan Africa?

In the summer of 2007, I worked with colleagues from the Food Security Research Project and the Zambia Central Statistical Office to implement an Urban Consumption Survey in four cities in Zambia (Lusaka, Kitwe, Mansa, and Kasama). We interviewed over 2,000 households and asked them about all of the food and non-food items they had consumed in the preceding 30 days. We also visited many food retail outlets in the four cities, including supermarkets, bakeries, small grocers, and roadside and mobile vendors. I was struck by how popular bread and other wheat products were among respondents of all income groups. It was also interesting to see the long queues for bread in the supermarkets and the vendors selling bread at a slight markup right outside the supermarket to people who wanted to avoid the long lines inside. I learned that similar things were happening in other African cities and towns, and decided to work with MSU agricultural economist Thomas S. Jayne and CIMMYT socioeconomist Bekele Shiferaw to delve into the factors driving rising wheat consumption in Africa.

What did you discover?

I expected urbanization to be a key factor driving rising wheat consumption in Africa but surprisingly, our results suggest that after controlling for other factors like GDP, total population, and the prices of bread and products that are complements or substitutes for bread, changes in the percentage of the total population that resides in urban areas don’t have a significant effect on country-level wheat consumption. This was surprising because in most countries in Africa (Ethiopia is an exception), wheat consumption is much higher in urban than in rural areas. We’re still investigating this finding to unpack what is going on. One possibility is that it’s not urbanization per se that drives wheat consumption but rather the demographic and socioeconomic changes that go along with it. These are things like rising incomes and increased labor force participation by women.

What did you observe about gender and wheat consumption in Africa?

A key finding of our study related to gender is that rising labor force participation by women—especially if it rises faster than labor force participation by men—has a significant, positive effect on country-level wheat consumption. We suspect that this is because wheat products (bread, pasta, chapati, etc.) take less time to prepare than many other popular staple carbohydrates like maize meal porridge (called nshima in Zambia and consumed widely in eastern and southern Africa). When women work more outside of the home, they have less time to devote to food preparation and may prefer quicker options like these wheat products.

What types of changes (policy, research, etc.) do you think would help women and families in sub-Saharan Africa?

This is really broad. But in general, I believe women provide most of the labor for agricultural production in Africa but often don’t have much control over the revenue from the sales of products they helped to produce. Women also tend to have less access to productive assets and technologies that could help raise agricultural productivity. Empowering women—for example, through formal education as well as adult education on improved farming practices and business/management skills, improving their access to credit, etc.—is critical not only for improving the well-being of women but also that of their children, families, and communities.

To see the full study on rising wheat consumption in sub-Saharan Africa by Mason, Jayne, and Shiferaw,  please visit http://fsg.afre.msu.edu/papers/idwp127.pdf

Published 2013