Girls and women are underrepresented in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). The likelihood of female students graduating with a degree in a science-related field is much lower than for male students, according to a U.N. study conducted in 14 countries. In an effort to improve their representation, a U.N. resolution established February 11 as the International Day of Women and Girls in Science.

To celebrate the occasion this year, CIMMYT asked women involved in agricultural science to share their views on what they would like to see change.

Rahma Adam

CIMMYT Gender and Development Specialist

Nairobi, Kenya

There are two inspiring women in science, who have made significant contributions to the world. The first woman is Wangari Maathai and the second woman is Marie Curie. Maathai was the first woman in East and Central Africa to earn a doctoral degree, the first to become a professor at the University of Nairobi. She made a significant contribution to environmental/forest conservation, women’s rights and peace.  In 1977, Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement (GBM), an organization focused on the planting of trees, environmental conservation and women’s rights. The GBM has planted over 51 million trees in Kenya. In 2004, she became the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

French-Polish scientist Curie’s work led to the discovery of radium and polonium in 1898, setting the stage for nuclear medicine, which allows internal imaging of tumors. Curie is the first person and only woman to win a Nobel Prize twice, including the 1903 physics prize jointly with her husband Pierre Curie and Henri Becquerel, and the 1911 chemistry prize. She was also the first woman to win the Nobel Prize.

The key factor that will encourage women and young girls to get involved in science is to be paired up with already practicing women scientists through mentorship programs so that they see firsthand what it is like to be a female scientist, and what it takes to become one. Starting a mentorship early in life – from the primary school level – will inspire young female students to take more interest in science classes and contemplate a career in science.

Bev Postma

HarvestPlus CEO

Washington DC, United States

Women’s contributions to science are vast and immeasurable. Heroes like Jane Goodall and Marie Curie, are some of the world’s most famous scientists who also happen to be women. One of my own personal role models from the past is Antoinette Brown Blackwell, who isn’t usually remembered as a scientist, but her efforts to dismantle the barriers to women in science and other research and intellectual fields is a major source of inspiration to me. Today, I am inspired every day by the young scientists in the CGIAR, both women and men, who continue to challenge all forms of gender disparity and are making huge contributions to our body of knowledge.

Women have long contributed innovations to various scientific fields, but their efforts are not always acknowledged, remembered or encouraged as readily as their male counterparts. Women of all ages have been fighting an uphill battle to become equals in the scientific community. Progress is being made but young women still face too many barriers to enter STEM fields and there are still too many hurdles to clear once they enter the workforce. The statistics speak for themselves and must not be ignored. The world needs these women scientists and we need to do all we can to nurture them and encourage a new generation of young women to enter into STEM fields. We must encourage and excite young women about studying STEM subjects, especially in developing countries. We can do this by profiling more female role models and by ensuring that new and established scientists get their fair share of airtime in publications and on conference panels. Sadly, I still see far too many male-only panels at STEM conferences. We all have a role to play in creating a work environment that provides opportunities for everyone to succeed, regardless of gender. Together, we must continue to support and elevate woman scientists within our workplaces and throughout the CGIAR system. I pledge to do my part to support and champion this movement.

Julie Borlaug

Inari Agriculture, Inc. VP Communications and Public Relations

United States

In my opinion, getting more girls and women involved in science will create more innovation, creativity and competitiveness. Women look at issues and research in a different light than men and are often more effective in communication. We must change the current perception of science as a negative, especially in agriculture. It is my hope that women will be able to talk about the benefits of innovation and technology in a manner that makes it easier to understand and acceptable to the public.

I would like to see more STEM programs in schools as well as in after-school programs and camps to introduce girls to science at an early age. Introduction at an early age is critical to furthering their passion and interest. By the time they are teenagers, they are more influenced by their peers and it is often too late to gain their interest.

Additionally, there are many opportunities for parents to provide toys that expose girls to math, chemistry and physics at an early age. Lego sets and many science kits have lines focused solely on girls and provide an important way for girls to grow confident in their capabilities. Several web-based STEM-themed games and apps have been released to encourage girls’ interests.

We need more young female scientists to serve as mentors to girls through various media, including social media outreach. It is hard to find programs or social media activities that highlight young female scientists to inspire girls. We must make a concerted effort to change this and empower the current and future generation of scientists!

Reshmi Rani Das

CIMMYT Research Scholar

Hyderabad, India

Women and girls have made significant contributions in various science disciplines, especially in agriculture, irrespective of their social status. We know women are the major workforce in agriculture worldwide, but sometimes they are marginalized due to limited land rights. When this is the case, they have less control over resources. Women’s contributions to agriculture are significant, across the sector, starting with research and development, and including the deployment of scalable technology leading to the capacity to make an impact on humanity.

It is essential to bring women working in agriculture into the mainstream and to empower them with direct access to knowledge of improved agricultural technologies. The female presence in scientific fields has been largely disproportional compared to male; however, the trend is slowly changing, as more and more women are entering these fields.

Equality in recognition of their contributions and equal rights in ownership of the resources might work as a strong motivator for women and girls to get more involved in science.  Introducing women and girls to scientific fields and encouraging them to follow their hearts and minds irrespective of social issues that influence career choices could also help overcome the negative perceptions that girls develop at a young age that science is a hard subject, leading them to avoid it. Friendly environments in high school and the university level, inviting females to participate and get over a fear of science, would encourage those with talent and a genuine interest to develop their interest.

Encouraging women to participate in training and workshops by motivating young girls to explore and challenge typically male-dominated fields could also help bolster the number of women in the field. As well as providing more financial assistance in the form of fellowships so that they become financially independent.

Parents are primary mentors, and therefore right from the beginning if there is support, women and girls can accomplish much more. The value of mentorship outside the home is also irreplaceable. In the past, we have seen the majority of successful women credit their success to their mentors for helping them reach career goals.

Mina K. Devkota

CIMMYT Systems Agronomist

Kathmandu, Nepal

Many girls begin making a significant contribution to science from a very early age. As they grow older, a sizeable portion of them will work in various research organizations, contributing to science in different fields. Women often also play a big supporting role in the successes of men working for science. Thus, women, directly and indirectly, contribute to scientific advancement.

In my opinion, enabling environments in family, society and in communities, promoting knowledge gathering, support for education and career development will encourage more women and girls to get involved in science. For example, in some countries, certain people have the mindset that women and girls must still be confined to household activities, an unfair bias limiting access to opportunities and exposure to science.

In response to Ethiopia’s worst drought in 50 years and the country’s critical shortage of maize and wheat seed for sowing in 2016, Ethiopian organizations, seed producers, and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) partnered to deliver to farmers over 3,400 tons of high quality seed that was sown on more than 100,300 hectares.

“We went three years without rain,” says farmer Usman Kadir, whose 1.5-hectare homestead in Wanjo Bebele village, Halaba Special Woreda, supports a household of 11 persons. “We were able to eat thanks to emergency food programs.” In 2017, Kadir used emergency maize seed to sow half a hectare and harvested 3 tons, getting his farm back on its feet. “If more new improved varieties come, we want to work with you and expand our farming operation.”

Funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) of the U.S. Ethiopia mission, seed relief complemented international and national food aid, helping farm families to quickly grow crops after several seasons of erratic or failed rains in Ethiopia and the catastrophic 2015-16 El Niño droughts. At that time, more than 10 million people struggled to find food, as eastern Ethiopia faced crop losses from 50 to 90 percent of expected yields.

“This effort helped rescue the food security and livelihoods of more than 271,000 rural households and 1.6 million individuals in Ethiopia’s Amhara, Oromia, Tigray, and SNNP regions, and strengthened seed systems to address future climate, disease, and pest crises,” said Bekele Abeyo, CIMMYT wheat scientist who led the seed relief initiative.

Wheat and maize: Mainstays of food security

Agriculture provides 42 percent of Ethiopia’s GDP, 77 percent of employment, and 84 percent of exports. Subsistence, smallholder farmers predominate, making their living from less than two hectares of land. Wheat and maize are the most important crops for food security; they are also at the center of Ethiopia’s increasingly vibrant agricultural output markets and have been the focus in recent years of public investment to raise national production.

Maize and wheat production in Ethiopia depends on rainfall, making the unpredictable weather patterns caused by climate change exceptionally detrimental here. Various studies predict an average 30 percent reduction in farm incomes due to climate change impacts, including greater extremes in temperatures and rainfall (floods, droughts) and the emergence of new pest and disease strains. Research shows that reduced precipitation is already holding back wheat yields.

To address this, experts identified maize and wheat varieties suitable for drought-affected areas and highly resistant to prevalent crop diseases. Of the maize varieties, some 10 percent were quality protein maize, which carries enhanced levels of key amino acids for protein synthesis in humans.

“This effort also provided training for district and zonal development agents in crop protection, agronomy, drought mitigation practices, and seed systems,” said Abeyo. “Finally, five women seed producer associations received wheat seed threshers and a large union of farmer seed producer cooperatives received a maize sheller through the initiative. This equipment will greatly expedite their operations and contribute to the expanded and more reliable access of farmers to affordable, quality seed in the future.”

Partners and contributors

Emergency relief seed was sourced through diverse CIMMYT partnerships, including producers in the USAID-funded “Drought Tolerant Maize for Seed Scaling Project” (DTMASS) and “Wheat Seed Scaling Initiative.” Stakeholders included the Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources (MoANR), the Bureau of Agriculture and Natural Resources (BoANR), public and private seed companies/enterprises, farmer cooperative unions, federal and regional research institutes, and non-government organizations working in target areas. With funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Ethiopia’s Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA) helped deliver seed to drought-affected districts and jointly organized training and workshops.

Click here to read a full report on the emergency seed relief initiative. 

The idea that “Educating women/girls is nothing but a loss,” used to be a common sentiment amongst members of rural Ethiopian communities where the Nutritious Maize for Ethiopia (NuME) project works. Now one is more likely to hear “Women are the foundation for change.”

The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT)-led NuME project is reducing food insecurity in Ethiopia by increasing the country’s capacity to feed itself. The project is improving household food and nutritional security, especially for young children and women, through shifting gender norms and the adoption of Quality Protein Maize (QPM).

QPM refers to a type of maize biofortified with two essential amino acids through traditional breeding to improve the inadequacy of protein quality of the conventional maize grown widely by farmers. Consumption of QPM instead of conventional maize leads to increase in the rate of growth in infants and young children with mild to moderate undernutrition from populations in which maize is the major staple food.

According to the World Bank, women contribute 40-60 percent of the labor in agricultural production in Ethiopia and play an important role in income generation, as well as unpaid household tasks. However, many women face severely restricted access to resources and services and lack control over income, greatly hindering their participation in and benefit from new innovations.

Few programs have specifically considered gender relations when implementing new initiatives in communities, however, when NuME found lower participation of women in the community-based promotion and dissemination of QPM, adapted community conversations were launched in two selected project woredas, or districts – Shebedino and Meskan – for a nine-month pilot in an attempt to raise women’s role in the project.

Community conversation (CC) is a facilitated approach based on the principle that communities have the capacity to identify their societal, economic and political challenges; set priorities; mobilize human, physical and financial resources; plan for action and address their challenges sustainably. It focuses on people’s strengths, resources and how they relate to challenges or problems communities face.

The people benefiting from a CC-driven project set priorities and create a plan of action to mobilize resources to address their challenges sustainably. This helps communities develop a sense of ownership, use local resources and take responsibility to bring about sustainable changes.

Because this approach involves the entire community, it also includes traditionally marginalized groups like women and youth.

When NuME first started community conversations, seating was very rigid due to cultural and religious traditions, but as the sessions continue paving the way for more community awareness on issues around gender norms and stereotypes, the seating has become much more mixed.

A facilitator from Shebedino woreda said, “Participants can’t wait for the bi-monthly conversations and they never want to miss them. These exchanges have helped men and women to get together and discuss their concerns, which was not a common practice before.”

“Women have begun raising their voices during community conversation meetings, while they used to be too shy and afraid to speak and very much reserved about sharing their ideas in public,” a female participant from Meskan woreda reported.

Community conversation participants have started changing the traditional gender stereotypes.

Through debate and the sharing of opinions, and more active participation from women, community conversations have educated participants on gender inequality, its prevalence and harm and have allowed men and women community members to exchange ideas about nutrition more effectively.

The NuME project will continue into 2019. Read more about how CIMMYT is working to equally boost the livelihoods of women, youth and men here.

The NuME Project is funded by Global Affairs Canada with major implementing partners the Ethiopian Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources (MoANR), the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR), the Ethiopian Public Health Institute (EPHI), the Sasakawa Africa Association (SAA)/Sasakawa Global 2000 (SG2000) and Farm Radio International (FRI).